Sad all the time
On winter drugs, fair-weather friends and linguistic determinism.
How’s your 2025 going?
Mine has been bumpy so far. I’ve felt every single of the 87 days of January stretch endlessly but I am positive things will soon get a lot worse as the months progress. Sfiga longa, fortuna brevis1.
But don’t worry because I won’t proceed to disclose my many personal struggles in detail over the next few lines.
I’ve watched too many celebrities descend so low they could have set up a profitable barbecue business in the earth’s inner core by now to be fully aware that one should never exploit personal trauma for likes or the futile pursuit of online virality. More importantly, perhaps, never for free.
That’s the stuff literary sensations, Nobel prize winners, and best selling memoirs are made of and I intend to reveal nothing unless a substantial book deal is on the table (with its corresponding screen adaptation rights) and an even more substantial advance is in the bank.
Until then, you can carry on reading with the peace of mind that comes from knowing this is a cringe-free space and you won’t be spitting out your coffee half-way through a confession that belongs in therapy and not in a free online publication. Not to brag but my paralysing inability to discuss my feelings openly and reach out for help or simply comfort has spared people -myself included- many embarrassing situations.
To be fair it is also a gold mine for content because every time something troubles me, my coping mechanism to distract myself from thinking about it is to write about something else so I can delay taking any action towards solving what’s bothering me for as long as possible. I don’t recommend it if you really want to sort yourself out, but I can’t help doing it all the same.
In fact we’ve got to this paragraph and I have managed to say nothing about why I’m feeling unusually apathetic and miserable -even for my standards- so I won’t keep the intrigue anymore and will take the decoy topic by the horns right away: It’s the sun. Or rather, the lack of it.
One of the things I love about speaking different languages is how each has words that reflect very specific states of mind that capture the essence of its speakers and way of looking at the world yet sometimes are untranslatable into another language because that concept doesn’t has an equivalent in their way of thinking.
This is roughly what the Sapir-Whorf theory and linguistic relativity propose: that how we think about the world around us is based on which language we speak and how some concepts exist in some languages and not others because they describe a reality that is particular to a certain culture. Although this hypothesis has had its highs and lows through the years, there’s a reason why the German language has produced schadenfreude, Spanish has given us siesta, Portuguese samba, French gourmet, and English workaholic. To each its own.
Italian, for instance, has a word that I’ve come to embrace since living in London: Meteropatico. Or in my case metereopatica2.
If you look metereopatico up in the dictionary, you’ll learn that this is the adjective assigned to those who suffer from metereopatia, a word that comes from the Greek, which you can easily tell if like me you’ve spent two years of your adolescence crying bitter tears trying to make sense of declensions in Latin and Greek. I’ll assume you have not endured this formative experience of which I’ve retained nothing but the mythology parts. Intriguing as it surely sounds, the judgment of Paris is, alas, rather unhelpful when it comes to etymology.
However, according to Italian Wikipedia, metereopatia (from the Greek μετέωρον, metéoron, "the thing that is, the thing that takes place above”, and πάθος, pàthos, which means "passion, illness,”) is a painful condition that is triggered by changes in the weather and climate.
You could very unceremoniously refer to it as weather pains, but you’ll be sorely mistaken if you picture it as a person announcing is going to rain because their knees hurt. Metereopatia is much more complex than your rotula playing up because it’s slightly overcast. Might in fact be osteoporosis, so you should have it checked instead of acting like a pathetic climate fortune-teller.
In Italian the word metereopatia is mostly used to describe internal states rather than physical ones and how the weather can alter your mood and heavily influence your outlook on life. A metereopatico is a person who feels such effect hitting them with the strenght of storms Éowyn and Herminia.
Instead of sore muscles or funny spots of bother in the body, think of we meteropatici as highly sensible beings who oscillate between a deep rooted disgust at existence with intense expressions of nihilism and outbursts of anger when the weather brings us down, and exacerbated optimism, irrational hope in the future and sudden bursts of endless energy when the weather more than meets our expectations.
That’s probably why it’s taken so long for my condition to be obvious: I have been fortunate enough to experience good weather conditions everywhere else I’ve lived, including London for many years.
Then one day it’s grey sky after grey sky, the heating is still on in June, winter boots and heavy coats have become a year-round uniform (which come with gloves, hats and umbrellas as preferred accessories), and next thing you know morale hangs lower than a 90-year old’s pair of balls and you hate everything and everyone for no other reason than existing.
To think I would have continued living a lie had I settled in a country where the sun abounds even in winter, the rain is scarce and hurricane-level storms unheard of is as chilling a thought as the weather.
With the exception of my brief and sunny escapade for my birthday in mid-January, the year so far has been spent in a dreamy “what’s the bloody point of anything anyway when is always dark and raining and I don’t have an umbrella and now my hair looks like I have a wet cat sleeping on my head when I’ve waited days to wash it because the BBC weather app said it wouldn’t rain today. And why is everyone wearing black? Isn’t it dark enough already? Is this method dressing? Do these people love looking depressed for some reason? I mean, they’re British, but still. No wonder they all flock to Benidorm and dream of dying from insolation under our sun. Watch your filthy umbrella! Damn you BBC, it took forever to wash my hair and what for now?,” stream of consciousness state.
Let’s be honest: The UK hasn’t known a good day since the Spice Girls split, but lately good weather for the season we happen to be in is such a rare occurrence that soon it’ll reach the status of a dodo, that bird-like creature long extinguished and for which we need to rely on historical drawings from the 17th century to prove it ever existed on this earth.
I predict that in a few years’ time we’ll have to resort to social media, the historical drawing archive of our times, and type the hashtag #londonlife -favoured among Instagram influencers to capture a life that no one I know who lives in London leads- to be reminded we witnessed sun and blue skies in this city in our lifetime. Sometimes even in winter and without filters.
My metereopatia hasn’t gone unnoticed among colleagues.
Mostly because I’ve made sure to huff and puff as loud as humanly possible at my arrival at the office, throwing my dripping umbrella to the ground with the mix of despair and vigour of a four-year old mid-tantrum, and letting my grown ass self collapse into a chair before exclaiming “Bloodyfuckinghell!” by way of good morning.
“Ciao Cristina, all good?,” an Italian colleague asks me with a smile. She always puts me in a good mood because she intuitively understands my non-verbal behaviours. There’s a reason why Italian is spoken as much with gestures as with words.
“I can’t anymore with this weather,” I confess turning my chair to face her.
“Ah, I see, you’re a bit metereopatica, aren’t you?”
“What’s metereopatica?,” a Chinese colleague turns from her seat to join in as the musicality of the word has caught her attention.
“It’s when the weather really impacts your mood and you feel very different depending on how good or bad it is. I’m not sure it has an equivalent in English,” my Italian colleague explains.
“Funny how the English language has other weather-related expressions but not a word for how the weather itself makes you feel,” our Chinese colleague points out.
“If you’ve grown up in this atmospheric misery you probably don’t notice anymore how depressing it is all the time so maybe no one thought a specific word was needed to describe winter as usual. They have come up with winter holidays so that’s probably as far as they’ll go.”
A German colleague approaches as I say those last few words3.
“Are you guys going anywhere for half-term? Somewhere sunny maybe?”
“We were actually talking about how Cristina and I really suffer the bad weather and how it makes us feel low.”
“Oh I see. One year I stocked up on Vitamin D because the GP recommended it but I think it’s all a scam to make money out of people so I sold it to a neighbourg before it expired. But my partner has started using a sad lamp althoug I’m not sure how much difference it makes when it’s dark outside anyway,” our German colleague always delivers facts.
“A sad lamp?,” I ask confused. The British are the true masochists of this world.
“You know, one of these lamps that help you with your mood in winter with a specific light. It’s for seasonal affective disorder,” the German colleagues says. “That’s why they’re call s.a.d. lamps not because they make you sad sad.”
Only in the UK would people come up with the idea to manufacture something you only need because capitalism can’t wait for you to wake up with natural daylight. And only in the UK would people name such a useless thing designed to improve your mood and lift up your spirits a sad lamp. British irony at its finest. Or masochism, hard to tell.
“My partner too had a sad lamp for a while,” the Italian colleague says. “He has a very hard time in winter and he feels quite down most of the time. I tell him to drink more coffee, it always cheers me up and make me feel relaxed, but he says he can’t sleep at night then.” I want to be wrong here, but something tells me caffeine-intollerance may be the reason they’ll break up eventually.
“I never knew this winter depression thing existed until living here. It was just winter, you get a grip on yourself and put up with it because it doesn’t last forever. British people seem to be stunned the moment November strikes,” the German colleague clearly doesn’t suffer s.a.d. fools gladly.
“Same for me back home. I only noticed it is winter because we drank more coffee because it was cold. Maybe it’s just a British thing,” the Italian colleague reflects. “My partner has started using CBD spray now and that seems to be working fine for him.”
“Oh yes, mine uses that as well as the lamp.”
“A CBD spray?,” I never thought a conversation about the weather could be so engrossing and revealing about the secret addictions of people I work with.
“It’s like medical cannabis to calm your nerves and help with anxiety. In Berlin you would just smoke a joint, put on a film and go to bed when the effect kicks in. Next day you’re feeling on top of the world. I’ve told my partner hundreds of times it’s way healthier and cheaper than throwing money away on this chemical crap he’s putting on his mouth.” I have yet to meet a German who hasn’t a pragmatic outlook on life no matter what.
“My husband uses St. John’s Wort,” our Chinese colleague shares. Both the Italian and German colleagues give a knowing nod and I can see a hint of admiration in their expressions. Am I the only one who’s been in the dark about this winter depression fight club?
“I don’t think it’s really doing anything because from November till April he’s really down. Like a dead puppet,” she says this making a slow swiping gesture with her right hand. “I prefer to drink fresh ginseng, much more effective and the smell really awakens your body,”now both her hands make an upward movement, as if she were scooping the substance of life from thin air and inhaling it. “I boil a big pot in the morning and that’s all I drink during winter,” her hands have now gone further up and made a circular movement over her head, as imitating the ascending steam of the boling ginseng water, and then come down very gracefully.
“No water. No alcohol. Only ginseng,” the tips of her fingers are now touching, palms slightly apart at heart level, her torso turning a few centimitres to face each of us individually, tips of the fingers making a subtle forward movement in our direction with every drink she’s listing.
“You pee a lot, but you have to go to the toilet anyway,” the fingertips now part to let the hands come down in a free flowing movement, imitating the litres of gingseng in their race to the uretra. “I also put a few slices on meals,” her index and thumb now touch, hands at mouth level. “I never get sick,” the hands now crossed over her chest, slight bow of the chin. This Tai Chi like explanation, delivered in a soft voice, has completely hypnotised us.
The German and Italian colleagues are nodding enthusiastically in approval. I’ve deduced both of them favour a traditional naturalistic approach when it comes to substance abuse and it’s clear they have finally met their sensei. If instead of Chinese this colleague were Japanese I would suspect the three of them are getting the old Axis band together to combat seasonal affective disorder one hot shot of ginseng and commanding hand gesture at a time.
“Do you use anything at all, Cristina?,” one of them asks me. Three sets of eyes are staring at me waiting to hear about my weapon of choice to fight weather-related mood swings.
I’ve learned two things from this exchange and my background in international relations: first is that one must have a drug of choice to survive the British winter, and second is to always remain neutral when offered the possibility to join an international alliance. It can escalate quickly.
“I just swear a lot, complain non stop and throw tantrums even if I know the weather is beyond my control. I find it weirdly comforting.”
“As long as it works for you…” the Italian colleague says in a tone that fades out slightly and marks the end of our conversation. Our little winter blues fighting squad dissolves as quickly as it has formed and everyone returns to their work. I look up to the window as I wait for my laptop to switch on. The sky is still wearing its signature January lead tone.
They’d better put the good stuff in those CBD sprays because I may need something stronger than swear words soon.
At noon it stops raining for a bit. I grab my winter kit (coat, hat, scarf, gloves and umbrella) and take this dry window of opportunity to go for a walk. As I head towards Borough Market a few drops are still falling, the rearguard that hasn’t been told about the truce.
The unusual empty alleys of the market offer an opportunity for reflection as I don’t have to worry about bumping into people while lost in thought.
I remember what my Chinese colleague has said earlier about how the English language has many weather related expressions as I have never thought about it before. Only this country could produce an expression like seasonal affective disorder which can conveniently be shortened to sad, a word I though described a stable British personality trait more than a temporary weather-related state.
Another one is fair-weather friend. Truth be told, I can’t see how anyone can be any other type of friend in this country when weather warnings are a dime a dozen. As far as I know, no one is looking forward to a shitty-weather friend upgrade. Back in the day even armies would stop fighting during the winter and resume combat in spring, and I haven’t heard anyone shaming this military tactic by calling it fair-weather war.
Not to speak of Dry January, which although originally coined for a non-weather related event to encourage internal dryness is rather misleading considering it’s been pouring non-stop outside (and probably inside) the whole month. Again British irony working its magic.
Walking along the quiet alleys of the market I start thinking about how many plans I’ve cancelled over the years due to poor weather conditions and it’s plain that I’m a true fair-weather friend who prefers to stay at home if there’s a 30% probability of rain or a yellow wind weather warning. I have no intention to teleport to Peterborough when I’m going out for a coffee. Not to speak of how washing my hair in this city requires a level of project management and strategic planning for which I am certainly under-qualified so I can’t let it all go to waste for impulsively trusting the BBC weather app, which more often than note can’t keep up with the weather changes.
With your hand in your heart, can I be blamed for prioritising my personal dryness whatever month of the year over socialising?
If you think my approach to social interactions is too radical and weather-determined, I sincerely hope you have never ever taken a rain check on people in your life. Not even when it was actually raining. Otherwise, you too are on my fair-weather friend boat, which sails on calm turquoise waters under a blazing sun without a hint of a breeze. Lunch will be served at 3 followed by a relaxing siesta until early evening. We take fair-weather friendship very seriously in this publication.
I’m convinced that if we had good weather more consistently I would be much more sociable and as a result my chances in love would improve dramatically. How am I supposed to meet the man that can finance the lifestyle of my dreams when we’re bracing ourselves for a Valentine’s Day whiteout?
Besides, as a Southern European I’m culturally crippled to leave the house in depressing weather in a state of semi-nakedness, which hinders my romantic prospects massively. Apparently, British women can wear skimpy clothes for a night out when the temperatures outside belong in Alaska and not Central London thanks to their focus on self-objectification, which inhibits feelings of being cold, although I suspect that may not be real reason.
I must lack any self objectification as my standard winter outfit makes me look more like the Michelin man than a sexy single lady about town, so it’s unlikely men look at me -or the bit that’s visible anyway between scarf, hat, gloves, and big coat- and think “Yes, that’s the woman I want to unconditionally provide for.”
Plus rain or not, the hair is a mess once you wear a hat. Any woman knows that.
Weather permitting -another English expression that gets a run for its money in this country- I’d opt for something more flattering and revealing, but the UK winter hardly permits much in terms of choices, sartorial or emotional.
I’ll have my revenge when the temperatures reach 28 degrees and these cold-sucking little shits ask for mercy and fear for their lives in the heatwave, commonly known anywhere else in the world as just summer.
A few quick drops fall on my face and I look up at the sky, which is still covered in a dark grey mass. There’s no point being outside when a storm is brewing and my flimsy umbrella will give away under the water that is bound to hit it any second now. The tourists may have realised as much and not even the Instagrammable produce of Borough Market has managed to lure them into experiencing the true #londonlife.
I cast a last glance at the empty stalls as I’m making my way back to the office and I observe a couple of passersby in the middle of the street checking their phones, not bothered by the impending downpour that is brewing over our heads. Their sensible waterproof shoes and thermal hooded jackets, as well as their colourful and multi-pocketed backpacks, betray them as tourists.
They are mumbling something I can’t quite understand but don’t seem disappointed with the weather in the same way I am. In fact, they’re smiling and keep pointing at the line-up of restaurants in front of them, visibly happy at the lack of queues as the traditional crowds are nowhere to be seen today so they can take their time choosing where they’d like to have lunch.
Every cloud has a silver lining. Again an expression only the English language, and British weather, could produce. Sapir and Whorf would be happy to hear linguistic determinism is alive and kicking on British soil.
I enter our office building the moment the sky opens and everything is drown into the deafening sound of the rain hitting the see-through ceiling, which is all fun and games when it’s sunny but menacing and roaring when it rains. I wonder how much water would it take for the ceiling to collapse, tired of putting up with another bad weather day when it was designed to let the sunshine in. And then a thought takes shape as I press for the lift.
Maybe in the same way that I’ve discovered I’m metereopatica in the endemic gloominess of the London weather, I am also molto solare4 under the scorching Sicilian sun, which shines bright for 350 days a year.
A whole new me that is carefree and full of energy, who strolls around in floaty summer dresses and sandals, and doesn’t have to meticulously schedule when to wash her hair or leave the house. Someone who can exist spontaneously all year around beyond the grips of the BBC weather app and who can spread joy, not tips to fight seasonal affection disorder.
I should put this weather determinism hypothesis to the test by spending a considerable amount of time in Sicily to see whether that hidden personality is truly in me and can come up to the surface under a virtually winter-free climate. In the meantime I’m willing to bet no one has ever heard of a bloody sad lamp down there and to me that’s already a promising sign.
Abroad is an independent publication about London, living in between cultures, languages, books, music, films, creativity, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.
If you enjoyed this post, like, comment and share as much as you like as that will help me inflict my thoughts on a greater number of people, which has been a childhood dream of mine. And if you find yourself here regularly, consider subscribing to receive updates and support my writing.
My free take on the evergreen classic “Ars longa, vita brevis.”
Ah the joys of gendered nouns and adjectives in Italian - Metereopatica (single woman), metereopatico (single man), metereopatici (several men or mixed group of men and women), metereopatiche (several women)
My workplace is a mini United Nations so this is a standard mix of nationalities any given day.
The Italian adjective solare derives from the Latin solaris, from sol solis, «sole» (sun in English) and is commonly used to describe a cheerful, happy person.
What a funny piece, obviously your humor was not washed off with the London weather! 😆
The irony! I'm reading it on the rare day when it's cloudy and foggy over here...
Tantrum-throwing/pissed off all the time is the very reason I left Germany and moved to Spain. I know you understand.
This is such a timely reminder of the negative effects of London winter weather! As I spend my third winter here in Barcelona taking walks, reading, and having vermut in the sun, it’s so easy to forget how depressing winter in London is, especially January February time. I think we all remember spring of 2021 too, with its slow post lockdown reopening marked by the coldest and rainiest May ever… anyway you definitely had the right idea to escape for your birthday. A new tradition is born!