She promised herself she would not let it happen again.

This was meant to be her final flop. Then she could resolve to change all the worst things about herself. If only her temper, or her tongue had not slipped, unmasking the rabid dog in her.

If only this, if only that . . . If, if, if.

“If” however was not even remotely on her mind as she paced around the garden like a pouting toddler – back and forth with her fists in two tight cannonballs, her face scrunched into a rosy near permanent frown, and a cloud of swears and curses flying from her flapping mouth in cartoonish fashion.

Now that I think of it, she was more like a disgruntled old granny returning home from the shops. They did not have her favourite cigarettes behind the counter, and the price of eggs had gone up for one reason or another, and the line at the checkout took forever to budge. What is this bloody world coming to? You commit to something all your life, you rely on it heavily in times of both trial and triumph, you invest your time, your energy, and even your money into it. Then without any advance notice – gone! All that this little granny knew in the moment was exactly that. She was just going to have to do without, and with three cumbersome grocery bags in her fists, she could the walk to air out some of the angry steam that had been bubbling away inside her head.

Well, be it petulant little girl or grumpy old woman, she was all too aware of both the injustice of her situation and the rather predominant role she had played in its design. What that was exactly, was neither here nor there to her now. She could not even exactly remember it if she tried.

The fact of the way it made her feel however, still remained, and that weighed her down the most – more than the canned fruit, or the two fists full of cannonballs. How much it drained her of all the spring of youth or even of joy? How horribly it showed in her rounder back, her thinning grey hair, or her faded grey eyes.

How badly, how very badly she needed the grace to let go.