When I first crashed out of my employment with a crushing depression in my thirties having been employed constantly beforehand, away from either office life or rural life, and emerged from my cocoon to take the first ginger steps back to society, that's what I noticed.
The reality of society was shielded from me by hours, every day of my life. It's like there was a whole other society that shuffled and limped, and they were far from old.
Taking it slow, I saw them. When I had not before.
It's not like I'd been blind to suffering before. I was always the type to put a large note in a surprised and desolate hand, I knew not to judge, and just to help, to give someone breath. I'd talk to homeless people, mad people on buses, I wasn't the type to shy away. I always listened.
But even now years later I still register the shock of that day, when I realised it wasn't a few people. It was half the town I didn't see. The sheer scale of need.