Yesterday I was walking across my local park when suddenly I felt a powerful, painful smack between my shoulder blades as if someone had thrown something there with great force. I screamed and turned around only to see a teenage boy running back to his friends. I don’t know what he threw. I yelled “What the fuck?” at them and they just stared at me and I didn’t know what else to say, especially as I didn’t really know what had happened, so I just kept walking. A man on a bike who’d seen it all stopped to see if I was OK and to my surprise I found I had tears in my eyes. I felt embarrassed and tried to play it down, as it was obviously just some kids having a laugh, and he pointed out to me that what had actually happened was that someone had crept up on me from behind in order to hurt and frighten me and I didn’t need to act like it was nothing. He went off to give the boys an earful and I carried on on my way. A bit later he caught up with me again saying that the boy had wanted to apologise but that I was already gone. Afterwards I felt guilty that I hadn’t waited for the boy to apologise to me, that I hadn’t taken the time to explain to him why he shouldn’t have hit a woman in the park - like somehow it was my responsibility to use the opportunity as a teaching moment, like I owed this kid something even though it hadn’t been my choice to have him attack me.
A walk in the park
A walk in the park
A walk in the park
Yesterday I was walking across my local park when suddenly I felt a powerful, painful smack between my shoulder blades as if someone had thrown something there with great force. I screamed and turned around only to see a teenage boy running back to his friends. I don’t know what he threw. I yelled “What the fuck?” at them and they just stared at me and I didn’t know what else to say, especially as I didn’t really know what had happened, so I just kept walking. A man on a bike who’d seen it all stopped to see if I was OK and to my surprise I found I had tears in my eyes. I felt embarrassed and tried to play it down, as it was obviously just some kids having a laugh, and he pointed out to me that what had actually happened was that someone had crept up on me from behind in order to hurt and frighten me and I didn’t need to act like it was nothing. He went off to give the boys an earful and I carried on on my way. A bit later he caught up with me again saying that the boy had wanted to apologise but that I was already gone. Afterwards I felt guilty that I hadn’t waited for the boy to apologise to me, that I hadn’t taken the time to explain to him why he shouldn’t have hit a woman in the park - like somehow it was my responsibility to use the opportunity as a teaching moment, like I owed this kid something even though it hadn’t been my choice to have him attack me.