TheBoy and I went down after lunch to get a coffee. Actually not coffee but fruit cups, with the temperature in the 30s [90F] and the smell of bushfires just starting to be blown away by a gusty sea breeze. We saw Angel there. She looked pretty rough, the poor thing, and she looked as if she was off her meds again. I wasn’t surprised, because she was setting herself up for a hard time when I saw her last, but it was sad to see her so bad.
Angel is in her late 20s and she looks to be in her mid 30s. She would have been pretty once, before life hit her with a truck and backed over her a couple of times. She has a mental illness – I’ve never asked her what, although she’s perfectly happy to talk about it.
You’ve met a mad person now. That’s what I am. Never forget your meds that’s the secret. I’ll tell anyone you musn’t forget your meds. That’s my problem today you see my prescription’s run out. …
Her prescription runs out pretty often, but that isn’t the real trouble. She’s one of those good hearted people who nature just didn’t equip properly to live in the modern world. You can see how it goes within a few minutes of meeting her, she can’t reign in her impulses or her emotions. She doesn’t have a shell, it’s all raw and she’s vulnerable to everything.
I doubt she can stick at a job, keep her temper, or handle alchohol. I doubt she can protect herself from any scammer, user, or shark. I’m sure the system, one way or another and in spite of the best help those who love her can provide, has chewed her up and spat her out since she first went to school. She’s had four children but
Social services took them away from me. Straight away, I didn’t get to keep any of ‘em. My mother saved me though, ‘cos she adopted the youngest one, so I get to see him. That’s what saved me. My mother she’s great you know?
That’s what’s messing with her at the moment. She told me a month ago when I ran into her in a doctor’s waiting room. She wanted to get her birth control taken out, because she wanted another child. Well she was facing a problem with medicine but she was facing a bigger problem too
Any guy will do, but I’m choosing a good one and then I’m having nothing more to do with him. That was my problem last time, the bloody dad.
I don’t know where to start with this, actually, I was thinking about it all through my fruit cup. One thing I’m sure of is that we all have a responsibility for the Angels among us. She came in and out from her table outside maybe twenty times in half an hour, and every time she chatted to customers and made life difficult for the waiting staff. The biggest difficulty is the pain in her eyes – it makes her scary and people turn away.
The people in the café were patient with her, though. That’s one reason I like the place; they get more than their share of eccentrics and they’re not too proud to treat them all like human beings no matter how much extra trouble it takes.