Manson’s Law of Avoidance: the more something threatens your identity, the more you’ll fight it. My sister called me last week. “Don’t panic but…” she said. Instant panic. My mom had had a fall. Thinking there was potential criminal activity happening at her neighbours, she had raced into the back garden in the dark to peer over the wall and shoo the baddies away, presumably using her blood-chilling Granny Glare and the power of her rounded expat vowels.
But that wasn’t the end of her antics. She then took herself to bed without telling a soul about her fall, because clearly it would all be better by morning. Spoiler: it wasn’t.She has a badly broken wrist, so much so that she had to undergo surgery to insert hardware, and suffer two nights of hospital food where baffled staff repeatedly tried to feed meat to a vegetarian.
It’s why people stay in high-profile jobs they hate, live in houses they can’t afford, persist in relationships that are breaking them, and wear high heels that hurt their feet.