If you ever happened to be in dalston kingsland station and I was there too, more often than not I would be standing on platform 1 waiting for the westbound train. This train took me to my most common destinations: my friend’s homes and their local pubs, university, town for an evening of fun…My brain was so programmed into rushing down to take the westbound train that once when I had to take the eastbound train from platform 2 I automatically went to platform 1. As the train approached I walked in, unaware that I was going in the wrong direction. I kid you not. It was only when I got to highbury and islington, my usual stop, that I realised I had made a mistake ( and that I had added an extra 20 minutes to my already late schedule, arrrgh!).
Nowadays I find myslef day in day out on platform 2, ready to take the eastbound train to Homerton hospital. As I was sitting on a bench in the platform the other day, I looked across to platform 1 and I realised how symbolic that is of how life can just unexpectedly change direction…I used to travel west, now I travel east.
While my westbound train carried certain anxieties about my future (where should I live? what should I do? should I or should I not?) my eastbound one now carries new ones. All my future fears have been replaced by a very present concern: the overcoming of illness. This does not meant that any of those worries about the future have disappeared. It just means that at least for now, they have been replaced by others: fertility, embryos, treatment, side effects and ultimately survival.
hi Rosa, Karina here on your computer (; I love your observations, the story about the tick and you WILL pull of cancer chick look..I will have to be “Dalston’s Next Crack Whore” myself. We will look really interesting when going out, ehh? Might start a new trend for all those wanna be Dalston people.
Why am I here and you are not ); Nick is about to clean the flat, so will quickly read this, then leave. MISS YA! XXX
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