The day I’d choose if Nobody Needed me
Someone recently asked me how I would spend the day if I had no responsibilities, when nobody actually needed me. No school runs, no work, no washing or cleaning. I could instantly answer and the answer shocked the person who asked the question. It wouldn’t be a holiday. It wouldn’t involve a spa, a city break or a bucket list adventure. It would be wonderfully ordinary. I’d wake up naturally, not because an alarm had gone off or someone needed breakfast. I’d stay in bed with a book for as long as I liked, turning the pages while the house stayed quiet around me. There would be no reaching for my phone because, in my perfect day, mobile phones simply wouldn’t exist. Perhaps that’s why so many of us look back fondly on the 1990s. It wasn’t that life was perfect. It was far from it. But the boredom still existed. Real boredom. The kind that left long afternoons stretching ahead of you with nothing planned and nowhere to be. We complained about it all the time, but ...