Pushing at a door marked "pull"

There is no particular reason why this came to mind recently. It just fell out of my head, so I thought I’d write about it.


I remember going to visit an old college friend a few years ago. We went to the pub, talked about old friends, caught up on each other’s news and then went back to his flat – where I was spending the weekend.

He had a very nice guest room and I was made to feel very at home.

However, when I turned in for the night I found myself suddenly tensing up, and becoming agitated.

Being in someone else’s home carries with it a heightened awareness of boundaries and privacy.

In short, I realised it was expected that I should shut my bedroom door.

But it wasn’t easy. Not because there was anything wrong with the door, or the doorframe. No, chiefly because I suddenly became acutely aware that I never shut my bedroom door.

This wasn’t exactly news to me – it’s been habit for decades.

But it was perhaps the first time I’d taken a step back and thought about it.

I shut the door, obviously. And then lay there in bed staring at it for hours, unable to settle and kept even further from sleep by the questions in my head – why did it matter, what did it mean?


When I was about seven years old I was a very sickly child, and was eventually admitted to hospital for a routine procedure that sorted everything out. But before that happened I missed almost an entire year of school.

My mother wasn’t working at the time, so the two of us got to spend a lot of time together.

Anyone with children will know they can be exhausting and exasperating at the best of times, more so when they’re not well and you’re constantly fetching and carrying, cleaning up vomit and so on. Despite your best intentions, patience is not in limitless supply.

I must, on occasion, have driven my poor mother to distraction.

I can’t see how I didn’t – it’s only natural.

There were times when it obviously got too much for her.

When I got too much for her.

She would lock me in a bedroom and leave me there for what felt like hours.

I got wise to this eventually, and when it was clear she was about to do it again, I would scream, beg, shout, cry, plead and beg some more for her not to.  She would drag me kicking and screaming and deposit me in the bedroom.  As soon as she let go of me, I would bolt for the doorway to avoid being shut in. I sustained a number of bumps to the head from getting in the way of the door being slammed shut.

She soon got wise to how I’d try to escape, and before too long would shove me into the room so that I’d stumble and wouldn’t be able to make a run for it.

She’d have to hold the door handle and keep the door pulled shut as I fought to open it, only being able to draw the bolt across when I became exhausted and stopped pulling from the other side – that’s when she was able to relinquish her grip on the handle.

I’ve lived at about 15 different addresses in my adult life.

Every time I’ve moved somewhere where there are locks on the bedroom doors, removing them has been one of the first things I’ve done.