Wow.

I posted that last article (A Smile a day…) only 9 hours ago, & I’ve already had a massive change of heart. PEOPLE ARE WONDERFUL!

I posted it at 6am, went to bed, had a little nap (my sleeping habits are all over the place at the moment) & woke up a few hours later to a message from a neighbour I am supporting, asking for painkillers. I was reluctant because I had a moody overhang from the day before plus minimal sleep but I had no choice so I quickly swung my legs out of bed & got dressed. My wardrobe currently could be described as walk in (read: walk on) at the moment. Clothing fills the hallway & spills out around my bed giving me 24/7 underfoot inspo for my next outfit. As I get out of bed I chance upon my Princess Jasmine costume among the melee. I look around for a clean t-shirt but the bright blue, shiny polyester catches my eye again. Sod it I think & put it on. In under 2 minutes I have gone from sleeping beauty to Princess of Agrabah. I just thought why not. Its as good an outfit as any. It does the job & I don’t seem to have the brain power to summon any other ensemble, plus it will certainly liven up this trip to the pharmacy so I don some sequin plimsolls for extra pizazz.

Now already the difference between yesterdays outing & today is stark. Here my expectations are rock bottom, there is no national outpouring of togetherness & I’m disney royalty; top of the fancy dress hierarchy.

Within minutes I’ve got a smile from across the road, ching ching chiiiing. Then someone gawps through a car window turning their head to see & its as good as a compliment. Yes, I get ignored by plenty of others but it doesn’t bother me an iota & like teflon I don’t let it stick, why would I, I’m just nipping to the shop. There’s a queue outside the chemist & a few kids on bikes. I ask them if they recognise me & they nod enthusiastically & a conversation with their Dad ensues. Meanwhile the two girls are egging each other on & one of them plucks up the courage to ask if I’m old enough to be Princess Jasmine which considering she is flawlessly created with computerised pen is pretty much the best compliment anyone can ever give, but is also pretty laughable since I could smell my own pits.

Inside, the woman in front of me in the queue immediately comments on my outfit, as does the pharmacist AND the pharmacists assistant. It couldn’t be an any more different experience than the day before.

My neighbour has also requested some groceries & inside Co op today, rather than old misery guts, its my fave cashier Archie who ushers me in with a little wave on my turn & says he forgot to ask me the other week how my birthday was. How was it? I could have pirouetted on the spot. What a star.

So I take it back humanity, you ain’t half bad after all. Perhaps what this story really highlights is the crazy rollercoaster our emotions have us on. We are to a degree governed by a complex mixture of variables including hormones, hunger, people, weather, media, pandemics…

All the ingredients were there for me yesterday that normally make for a great day, its just the expectation & pomp of VE day & watching everyone else having a knees up together on the TV was particularly hard & drove home the solitude & made me more conscious of peoples otherwise totally standard, nonplussed response.

There’s still plenty of room for improvement Cambridge don’t get me wrong but without those extra, external layers my experience was very different, so I will happily continue putting my little sparkly imprint on the world. I’ll probably invest in some more Disney outfits too because today…. today was a whole new world…. 🙂