The Right Not to Hurry
The text from her GP arrived as Helen was hunched over her desk at the office, finishing yet another email. She started at the vibration of her phone, resting by the keyboard.
“Your results are in; please come by before six,” the message read, concise as ever.
The computer clock glowed: quarter to four. From the office, it was three stops on the bus to the surgery, then the queue, the doctors office, the journey back Her son had rang earlier, promising to “pop round if he could,” and her manager that morning had hinted about an extra report. There were papers for her mother at her feet, which Helen was meant to drop off this evening.
“Off to the doctors again?” remarked Linda, her seatmate, as she watched Helen glance at the time.
“Yes, have to,” Helen replied out of habit, though her neck was damp under the shirt collar and a dull, relentless tiredness thudded in her chest.
The working day dragged like stodgy dough. Emails, calls, endless Slack messages. Around midday, her manager poked her head out of the office.
“Helen, quick one. The contractors demanding a summary over the weekend and Im away Saturday. Could you pick it up? Nothing major, just collate the tablesthree, four hours. Can be done from home.”
The managers “nothing major” hung in the air like an order. The colleague on Helens right busied herself with her screen, trying to turn invisible. Helen opened her mouth, ready with the customary “Of course,” but then her phone buzzed quietly. A nudge from a health app: “Evening: 30 min walk.” She’d set these reminders herself over the summer, after a worrying spike in blood pressure, but usually she just swiped them away.
Today, she simply gazed at it, as if it were a living thing waiting for her reply.
“Helen?” the manager prompted again.
Helen drew a breath. Her head buzzed, but deep down inside, there was a stubborn, solid feeling: If she said yes, shed be up all night again, her back would ache, and then Sunday it would be laundry, cooking, and her mothers surgery.
“I cant,” Helen said, surprised herself at how calm her voice sounded.
Her manager raised her eyebrows.
“What do you mean? Youve always”
“My mum needs me,” Helen said, naming the excuse that always justified her lateness but somehow never a refusal. “And, well The doctor told me not to overwork. Sorry.”
She didnt mention that her GP said this ages ago, really in passing. But he had said it, after all.
A pause settled over the room. Everything inside Helen tensed, bracing for the usual disappointed sigh, the guilt-laced reminders about “the team” and her “reliability.”
“Fine,” said her manager, clearly planning to press the point, but then waving it away. “Ill find someone else. Get on with your work.”
When the door closed, Helen noticed her back was slick and the hand clutching the mouse was trembling. A guilty thought scampered past: She should have said yes. It was just three or four hours on Saturdayhow hard was that?
But next to the guilt, quietly, was another feeling, unfamiliar and therefore a little terrifying. Relief. As if shed finally put down a heavy bag and sat for a moment.
That evening, instead of dashing to the shopping centre to pick up something for the report, Helen left the surgery and didnt rush for the bus. She stood by the doors, steadying her breath, and for the first time really noticed the ache in her legs from a day of running about.
“Mum, Ill come tomorrow,” she said over the phone, after queueing for the GP and grabbing the results.
“Not coming today?” Her mothers voice was its usual, with a touch of gentle reproach.
“Mum, Im shattered. Its late and I need to get home, to have a proper meal, at least once. Ill buy your tablets, dont worry. Ill drop them over first thing in the morning.”
She was ready for the storm but instead, there was only a sigh on the line.
“As you wish. Youre not a child.”
“Not a child,” Helen chuckled to herself. Fifty-five, two grown-up kids, mortgage nearly paid, and yet still always feeling as if she had to prove she was good enoughas a daughter, a mother, a colleague.
The house was quiet. Her son had messaged that he wasnt coming tonightwork was “manic.” Helen put the kettle on, sliced some tomatoes. For a moment her hand twitched towards the vacuumfloor could do with a clean. Then, she simply pulled out a chair, filled her mug, and let the tea cool while she flicked through a book shed started on holiday.
Deep inside, that chiding voice gnawed: laundry to hang, pans to wash, the report to finish, search for a better clinic for mum. But now, it was fainter. Between the nagging “must dos,” a sliver of something new crept in: “It can wait.”
She read at leisure, going back to paragraphs shed missed. At some point, she realised she was just gazing out the window, with nowhere to be in a hurry. Outside, headlights streamed by, the odd pedestrian dragging bags, dogs ambling contentedly by their owners.
“Its fine,” she said aloud, mostly to herself, as if summing up. “So what if the floors arent gleaming.”
The thought didnt feel like a crime.
* * *
Next day, the merry-go-round began as if “yesterday” hadnt happened at all. Her mum rang at nine, edge in her voice.
“Helen, you will be here before lunch? Doctors due at eleven to check my blood pressure.”
“I promise,” Helen replied, already wriggling into her jeans with one hand and stuffing the BP monitor into her bag with the other.
Her son pinged on WhatsApp.
“Mum, hi! Listen, its about the flat. Can you video call tonight?” His tone was all business, distant, like negotiations at work, not a family chat.
“Sure. After seven,” Helen shouted into her mobile, cramming her boot on. “Off to your grans now.”
“Again?” he asked.
“Again,” she replied, calmly.
On the bus, passengers bickered with the driver, plastic bags rustled in the back. Helen dozed off, clutching the BP monitor, and woke up outside her mothers flat.
Her mother met her at the door in her dressing gown and a familiar frown.
“Youre late. The doctorll be here soonlook at the mess,” she nodded towards the chair piled with clothes.
In the past, Helen would have snapped instantly, words flying unchecked: “I dash all over town and youre moaning about a mess?!” Later came guilt, exhaustion.
This time, Helen paused at the threshold, dropped her bag and took a breath. She could see the lines of their well-rehearsed dramawords, hurt, sighs. How, after every row, shed leave, rub her eyes on a handkerchief, and invent some excuse for the kids about her foul mood again.
“Mum,” Helen said quietly, “I know you worry. But let’s just get set up for the doctor and then Ill tackle the clothes. Im not invincible.”
Her mum frowned, about to argue, but saw something on Helens face. No outrage, no weepy pleajust calm, firm resolve.
“Alright,” she grumbled. “Get your kit out.”
After the nurse left, her mum fiddled with the belt of her gown, speaking in a voice reserved not for news or complaints, but something smaller, almost apologetic.
“Im not cross, you know. I just get frightened on my own.”
Helen was washing mugs at the sink, the water warm, her hands smarting from the detergent. Her mums words thawed something inside her, even as they stung.
“I know,” Helen answered. “I get frightened too, sometimes.”
Her mum made a soundsomewhere between a snort and a sighand turned up the telly. But the room softened round the edges, as if someone had laid a fragile thread delicately, not tugging too tight.
* * *
That evening, on her way home, Helen nipped into the chemist on her street. Ahead of her, the neighbour from her buildingthe one always seen dashing with her buggy and heavy shopping bagswas standing, looking lost.
“Cant get my head round which vitamins to get for my husband,” the neighbour muttered, clutching a notepad. “Doctor gave me names, but then theres special offersconfusing, isnt it?”
Helen might once have nodded politely and buried herself in her phoneshe had enough of her own on her plate. But tonight, she recognised that lost look at the counter. Only recently, her mother had asked her to jot down the medicine schedule. Last winter, Helen herself had stood just like this, confused and frustrated, a prescription clenched in her fist.
“Let me see,” she offered.
They stepped aside. Helen put on her reading glasses, deciphered the notes, checked with the pharmacist, and pointed her neighbour to the right box.
“Oh, thank you,” the woman exhaled. “My brains mush. You know about all this, with your mum and that. You must be such a pro by now.”
Helen laughed quietly.
“Not really. I just… had to learn as I went.”
As they walked out, the neighbour hesitated.
“If I get stuck again, could I ask you? My husbandll never bother to find things out.”
Once, Helen would have answered, “Of course, any time,” only to fret later if the phone rang in the evening. This time, she waited a second, listening to a flicker of unease: Would she be taking on someone elses burden?
“Give me a ring,” Helen said after a pause. “But perhaps try me during the day if you can. Evenings are mostly for myself.”
It surprised herclaiming her own time like that, as if it were as legitimate a reason as someone elses prescription.
Her neighbour nodded, unfazed. That felt better than any thanks.
* * *
Helen made a simple supper. No sprawling roast or array of pans as if the whole family were stopping by: just pasta, chicken, and bits of cucumber. The kitchen was bit cluttered, her sons shirt on the back of a chair, a basket of laundry squatting in the corner. Ten years ago, shed never have sat to eat with mess about.
Now, she just nudged the basket aside with her foot.
Later, her son rang, his voice tight:
“Mum, its complicated. Theyll give us a mortgage, but the deposits pretty steep. We were hoping you could help, just a bit more. I know you already have, but”
Helen shut her eyes. These conversations always hit a raw spot, unleashing a whole parade of self-reproach: did she earn enough, raise them right, build a good life? And along with it, an old, bitter splinterfrom when she’d sunk her savings into her husbands failed business and blamed herself for years.
“How much do you need?” she asked, leaning on the table.
Her son named a figure. Not colossal, but not small either. She could use her savings, the ones shed slowly squirreled away for her somedaymaybe a trip to the seaside, a new fridge, proper dentures for her mother.
Inside, paper crackled, like the brittle old notes kept in a drawer: not just numbers, but regretsthe city move she never made, the degree she never finished, the years she stayed with her husband, only to part in the end.
“Mum, well pay you back, promise,” her son rushed.
“Im not worrying about it,” she replied truthfully. She knew it was unlikely ever to come back. It never did.
There was a pause, the sort her son would think was ages. Images flickered: his childhood boots bought on credit, Christmases without their father, him cuddling up to her on stormy nights. And her own dreams, always shelved, like a cardigan tucked out of sight.
“Ill help,” she said. “But only half. You and Emma will need to stump up the rest yourselves.”
“Mum…” Her son’s voice faltered in disappointment.
“Alex,” Helen rarely used his name this way. “Im not a bank. And I have my own life too. I need to think of myself sometimes.”
Silence. Helen listened for the guilt, waiting to swamp her. But it didnt. She felt anxious, yes, a little ashamed. But strangely steady too.
“Alright,” he conceded. “Youre right. Well manage. What you give will really help, anyway.”
They chatted about work, his sister, favourite shows. When the call ended, the tick of the kitchen clock filled the silence.
She sat beside the laundry basket, looking at it, and felt something odd. Almost as if the younger, more dishevelled, guilt-ridden version of herself had sat down with her.
“Well,” Helen mused mentally to her thirty-five-year-old self. “Yes, we missed things. Yes, we made mistakes. But its no reason to beat ourselves up for another twenty years.”
It wasnt wisdom, more a quiet truce. She picked up a shirt, folded it, then anotherbefore stopping and leaving the rest for tomorrow. For once, she let herself avoid perfection.
* * *
On Saturday, with no extra work, Helen woke without her alarm. Instinctively, she tried to spring up”must get going”, “must cook”, “must clean”but made herself lie still for ten minutes, listening to footsteps outside her window.
After some tea and a speedy tidy-up, Helen pulled from her dresser drawer a small notebook. Her daughter, Lucy, had given it to her at Christmas with enthusiasm.
“Mum, this is for you to finally do something for yourself. Write what you want to do.”
Helen had smiled then and tucked it away. The pages stayed blank. After all, what “own things” could a woman with a mother to care for, a job, and grown kids possibly want?
Now she turned a new page. No grand plans cameno round-the-world holidays, no career makeovers. She realised, almost shyly, she didnt want to invent a big “project” for herself.
Instead, she wrote: “Would like to go for an evening walk now and then, just for the sake of it.” And below: “Sign up for computer course at the local library.”
Not French or pottery or anything for show. Just to get confident with the things she already neededtired of always needing her son to book GP slots online.
She slipped the notebook in her bag. Stepping out, she turned away from the usual route to the shops and strolled into the nearby park, unused in years. It was quiet, shafts of sunlight cut through old trees, two women chatted nearby about health, the cost of cheese, their childrenthe same concerns as Helens.
She walked on, neither fast nor slow, but at her own pace. Somewhere inside, she felt a freedom, like a cupboard cleared of familiar but unnecessary things.
Helen didnt know how to live a new way yet. Shed still slip up, say yes too often, snap and regret. But there was now a space between all that and herselfa pause long enough to ask: “Do I really want to?”
On her way home, she popped into the library shed passed for a decade, never entering. It smelled of paper and dust; a woman in a knitted waistcoat looked up.
“Can I help you?”
“Im after the computer classes,” Helen blurted. “For, um, adults. Want to get the hang of things.”
The librarian smiled.
“Yes, evenings, twice a week. Next groups forming now. Shall I put your name down?”
“Please,” said Helen.
As she filled out the form and wrote her age”55″it no longer felt like a sentence. More a marker that shed made it far enough to have the right not to run.
Back home, the kitchen was still untidy, her sons shirt draped over the chair, her mums blood results on the table, and an unanswered email from work titled “Next Months Targets.”
Helen left her bag, took off her jacket, and stood at the window for a few moments, breathing easy. She knew shed soon wash the dishes, call her mum, reply to the boss. But now, between all those jobs, she would always find herself a little windowa mug of tea, a page of her book, a brief stroll around the block.
And that, she found, mattered more than anything else.
