So after a lovely visit with my friend at the weekend which was over way too quickly, I headed off as you know to the big smoke. It’s been a while since I was in central London, and I’d forgotten how frantic the pace is.
I used to work out of Canary Wharf a couple of days a week in my old job, and I remember the utter misery I used to feel as I left the office to cross London on the tube so I could hook up with my train home. It was usually the busiest time, with commuters head down and keen to get out of the city and the tube was always packed.
I’d done the journey so many times I’d figured out the exact place to stand on the platform to get on the carriage which would spit me out right next to the escalator at the station where I needed to change trains, so I didn’t have to walk as far. From there, I knew to the nearest square inch where to wait for tube number 2 so as to minimise how far I’d need to walk once I got to London Kings Cross.
I used to draw furious looks from commuters since I took up twice as much space as everybody else in carriages packed tighter than sardines in a tin, and I’d get more red in the face and sweaty with every minute that passed. I desperately avoided eye contact with anyone in case some random polite stranger offered up their seat for a lady who looked fat and old and struggling because despite my body silently begging to sit down, the truth is I knew that my backside didn’t fit in the seats.
By the time I picked up my main train North I’d be exhausted. My ankles would be killing me, my feet would be swollen, and my knee and back would be giving me hell. I always tried to find a seat in the buffet car, because the aisles were too narrow for me to walk up and down easily without my arse knocking down everyone’s armrest, or sweeping stuff off their table as I lumbered by.
At least a seat in the buffet car meant I only needed to walk a few steps for emergency food if I was struck down by a hunger pang. Which I usually was, at least two or three times on the two and a half hour journey home.
This week in London has been different. It was still busy, and too hot on the tube, but I sat down tentatively when a seat came free, and I didn’t get wedged between the armrests…who knew that would ever happen again. When I arrived in the big smoke I was two tubes and a fifteen minute walk away from my hotel, and you know what, it was okay.
I mean I’m still carrying 117lbs in my pants that has no right to be there, so I’m still fat, in fact I’m still really fat. But I did a normal thing like a normal person. I lugged a work bag and an overnight bag and a tired old body up and down stairs, over bridges, on and off trains and on foot through the streets of London, and when I got to my hotel I felt no more tired than any other girl about town would feel after a long day’s graft.
I came very near to never being able to do that ever again. The fact that I can, again, is an awesome feeling.
