It was a very curious coincident considering what was going on in my own life. The story is truly heartbreaking. Mrs Manstey has spent the last 17 years of her life in a 3rd floor room of a boarding house in New York. She’s an old widow with few visitors and is too frail to venture out anymore. So she spends her days sitting at her one window looking out to the neighbourhood. It’s not a striking view; small untidy gardens and occasional appearances of the house occupants and their servants at their windows. Mrs Manstey had never been an awfully sociable person and the window seemed to provide just enough entertainment. Until one day, the neighbouring boarding house owner decides to build an extension that would to poor Mrs Manstey’s terror, completely block her view. Mrs Manstey cannot imagine how she can go on living.
Have you ever ended up in a place where you realise your best laid out plan, your safest bet at a satisfactory existence no longer seems feasible? It may not have been the best plan or the most exhilarating one but it existed. It worked. What do you do when the partner you bought a house with looks more and more like a stranger; the boring peaceful retirement plans turn to mist; and since you’ve been too busy building a career, paying a mortgage, working out to make up for your faulty metabolism, that you totally missed out on making any friends. Your job is bland, you don’t have much a character, no fun hobbies and people bore you. Do you have a plan for just One?
It’s not the most pleasant thought but it’s a necessity, thinking of a Plan B. But how do you do it without losing faith in Plan A, AKA your current life? How does one live a life they suspect may crumble any minute? How does one enjoy a window, get attached to a view, give with a full heart, while remembering that it could be blocked any day?
5k done.
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