Sunshine

Today was the most beautiful day of the year in London. And the warmest. It was absolutely magical and even the usually cranky woman in the post office at our local corner store cracked a smile.

Because sunshine isn’t as abundant in London as it is in say, Sydney, when it does come out the whole city goes alfresco. As an Australian who has spent most of her life avoiding the sun, when I first moved here I thought it was strange.

In 2007 when we arrived in London, the first warm day we had I happened to be in Parsons Green. There was hardly an inch of grass that didn’t have a bikini clad woman or equally undressed man lying on it. It was only about 17C and both Rob and I thought it was totally bizarre. It would be like hanging out in North Sydney park with your cozzie on.

Parsons Green, SW6

I am now one of those people. Except I don’t expose my skin as I’ve been brainwashed that sun is the devil and will cause you to get skin cancer and die. It’s what happens when you grow up in Australia. In Australia these days if you let your kid run around on the beach with no sunscreen, without a rash vest and without a hat you’d definitely be verbally abused and then probably stoned to death.

As everyone knows, I like English weather. I love the four seasons and I love how appreciated the sun is when it comes out. The cold doesn’t bother me at all and whoever started the rumour that it rains all the time in London was an idiot because it rains in Sydney twice as much (fact).

As our inevitable move to Sydney draws closer, my anxiety and sadness escalates. Today was a particularly shit day in that regard, but the sunshine and the good mood of my lovely friends and even strangers lifted me. A bit.

I am having a rough time. On the outer I seem very together and in control, but like a lot of people I have my demons and the struggle I have with anxiety and depression is a daily battle. Moving country is an extremely stressful event, and when that country is somewhere you don’t want to live then that anxiety is one hundred fold.

A very close and wonderful friend of mine who also suffers from anxiety sent me an email from Sydney today and she summed me up like this … “I totally get it. Basically you are in an extreme stress situation because there’s only so much you can control and there are way too many unknowns – family stuff, schooling stuff, LIFE stuff. What we both need is the ability to go, ‘WOW, this is REALLY stressful’ and then let it go. Instead, it spirals into somehow all being a character reflection on us – and I have no idea why or how to stop it.”

I’m not really sure what this blog was about. It started off as sunshine and ended in darkness.

But I should be used to that, it happens to me a lot.