Gray Days

We have been having a very gray spell around here for some time now. And, again, I know I really can't complain about a southern Italian winter as compared to say...a frozen tundra or a northern clime where the sun only shines a few hours a day. But gray day after gray day can really get a girl down.

When I first moved here I would laugh at the people who would tell me they were "meteopatico." This is a word that doesn't seem to actually exist in the dictionaries. What it means is "a person whose moods are affected by the weather."

Well, that just seemed like the height of self-indulgent mollycoddling to me at the time! Like the way they would complain that the weather was "ruined" when a single cloud would mar the otherwise pristine blue sky in summer. I mean, come on, get over it! What's a little cloud in the sky? What's a string of gray days? Life goes on just fine despite these teeny, tiny inconveniences.

And yet, here I am. Feeling gray because we've had nothing but gray days for the past couple of weeks. I'm afraid I may be turning...meteopathic...or maybe even meteopathetic!

So, to defend myself from feeling stupid on top of gray, I did I little poking around on the web and discovered that this weather-affecting-one's-mood thing actually does exist. If you don't believe me just click here, or here, or even here and then tell me what you think! There's even a more serious condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD, which as an acronym communicates so much!

My approach to the grayness is activity. Getting out of the house, meeting up with friends, going to the gym, perusing the sales at the shops, taking photographs, whatever. The key for me seems to be to get moving, be with other people and not hole up at home.

So, speaking of which, I'm out of here. Smile and have a sunny outlook, even if there's no sun when you look out the window!