The coffee and toasty gift

I've had a fairly torrid week of limping from place to place due to a problem I have with one of my feet. It's being treated but the treatment has brought other complications and they're painful. I've been on pain killers all week and whilst I've been going to work it's not been easy, comfortable or any fun whatsoever.

I went through a few days, the last three, feeling very grumpy, annoyed and a little despondent if I'm totally honest. I've been worried about my foot and other subsequent complications and have had pretty bad nightmares about it. I'm used to confronting dreams but these new and improved ones? They sucked.

I've tried to be easy on myself, to stay occupied and act as normally as possible I'm general life and on Hive also - I didn't want to come across as different. Allowing stuff like this to penetrate too deeply doesn't make the problems go away, or feel any less troublesome...Being normal and persevering can help keep one's attitude in the right place...and so I hit the café like usual, albeit at a very slow limp, and pretended all was normal.

I sat there thinking about things, wrote a post for Hive and had a chat with a couple of the people that work there. But, in the main, I just watched the world go by, listened to the snippets of conversation around me and generally tried to keep the focus off my foot situation.

I listened to an older couple in the booth beside me discuss issues around their finances and whilst I felt a little rude evesdropping on their conversation I was captivated.

They are a retired couple trying to make ends meet financially, balance needs against their available funds. Prescription medicine, food and fuel were the main items of discussion and whilst I had the impression they were able to bring it all together I felt certain it was a very tight situation.

Prices have risen dramatically over the last couple years and wages aren't keeping up, for retirees on pensions it's difficult and I know many are having conversations like this. I was happy they were working through it but sad that these people had to struggle so hard in their twilight years.

But...what broke my heart was when they decided to only buy one coffee and share it. No, I wasn't having it.

I gathered my things and made to leave but before I did I stopped at the counter and paid for two coffee's and two toasted sandwiches which I asked the guy to offer to the couple after I had exited. He looked at me like I was weird but I'm a regular and he said he would do so; I paid and hobbled off and away.

As I was turning the corner I saw through the glass that the guy was with the old couple and was pointing at me...I hobbled a little faster and was gone.

Right now, I'm laying on my bed and am supposed to be going to sleep. My foot is throbbing and shooting pains up my leg...it's Monday tomorrow so I'll have to limp to work and it's almost midnight. I can't sleep though.

I'm feeling happy to have done something nice (if very small) for that couple on a weekend in which I was feeling totally miserable. It feels good to have brought a little happiness to someone who deserved it. I'm also casting my mind over my own financial situation and thinking about how well prepared I am for future eventualities; I don't want to be like those people deciding what to go without, what was most important. My parents had to when I was a kid, I heard the same conversations, and I don't want that to be me. I don't think it will be but things happen all the time and I guess one can never really know one is prepared enough...but to actively prepare means one may be able to mitigate some of the risk right?

Anyway, it felt good to gift that couple a coffee and toasted sandwich and you know, for a while after, even still, I feel less miserable. It's a good feeling.