I believe there are a lot of good people in the world.

When I was in a car crash two cars stopped for me. A nice family and a lady just going to the gym. They both helped me out. They calmed me down and the lady took me back to her house. She helped me make phone calls, plied me with chocolates and tea. She used local contacts to get my car out of the ditch and let me stay safely in her house till my family could come and pick me up from a long way off. She had never met me before and I am unlikely to ever meet her again yet she went to all that effort for a complete stranger. 

A week later  my new car broke down in the middle of a four way junction. The radiator overheating so much that steam poured out of the bonnet. That was when another family of complete strangers came to help me out. They got school kids to push me across the road to safety and then another woman came out of her house to give me tea.

You can tell I live in England by how much tea is used to deal with traumatic events. It is a country wide tradition after all.

This is my big example of kindness but there are a lot of smaller ones. I meet people who give their parking tickets to others because they haven't used all the minutes, there are ladies I know who sew clothes to fit premature babies and even those who hold the door when i'm carrying boxes of things.

Even the angry or sad people I meet are just having a bad day. They don't mean to be unkind to me. I am just unfortunate collateral in them trying to deal with their own problems.

So as I say; I believe most people are at least trying to be good.

Yet when I walk home at night I carry my key in my pocket like it is a knife. Because I know that though most are good there are a few who are bad. 

I have friends who have been sexually or physically assaulted in a variety of ways. I have had my arse groped and then had it laughed off by those around me. I have had a man grab me in the middle of a supermarket after I accidentally bumped into him. He said to me "You're lucky i'm not one of those rapey guys love." As he held me so close I could smell his breath. The people doing their shopping around us just gave him a wider berth without saying anything. I have friends whose exes have posted personal pictures online to get back at them for leaving them.

I have not had it bad. Not really. But I am anxious about those few people. Those few humans who forget that everyone else is a human too. I probably always will be a bit nervous of them.

What I will always remember too is that most people are good too. That makes it a bit easier to step outside even with a key in my hand.