On a recent sodden weekend walk, I tried to cheer myself up by thinking: it’s not so bad. Not the slugs or the sky or the rain making its way down a gap between neck and waterproof. But I couldn’t do it. Losing heart, I turned back. Glump, glump, glump through the puddles.
It rained through breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. Same the next day. And the day after. I wore grey and sighed at the window.
But I am aberrant. Melancholy is against the rules nowadays. I should have put on my yellow wellies, twirled my spotty umbrella, photographed myself in the garden and put it online with the hashtag #singingintherain. That’s what everyone else seems to be doing.
If, like me, you are a natural Cassandra, then the present Pollyanna tendency is a trial. I do not smile at smiley faces. Today is not the first day of the rest of my life.
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