Tell Me Not To Be Scared

31st May 2012 Thursday

You’d better read this for me, says my husband. Not sure I understand it.

It’s in a fat brown envelope from the job centre......lots and lots of words on lots and lots of pages.....appeal unsuccessful.....not in the category of limited ability to work...no symptoms of ‘overwheming fear or impending death’ in social situations...benefits denied......will go to tribunal.....

Tribunal sounds scary. My husband goes to his ceramics class. I phone my sister,

Tell me not to be scared, I say.

You don’t need to be scared, she says.

Forms......the system.......authority figures - it’s like opening a drawer full of snakes for me - I must have done something wrong. And the person who used to read all the forms and fill them in for me is lost.

I make an appointment for us at the Citizens Advice Bureau - but not till the middle of June.

Driving home from Mindfulness tonight I think about supper and dream up a plate of rigatoni -  slippery hot with pesto and garlic, chesnut mushrooms and spinach. 


A plate of safety.