The Silver Lining Syndrome

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is “A character faces an important decision” with bonus  points if it doesn’t mention COVID. This week’s contribution comes from Chiara De Giorgi.

Chiara is currently in Berlin, Germany, doing her best to catch up with semi-abandoned writing projects. Her YA novel “Mi chiamo Elisa” was published in Italy by “Le Mezzelane Casa Editrice” in September 2020.

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The Silver Lining Syndrome

by Chiara De Giorgi

 

Photo by Enrica Bressan from FreeImages

Every cloud has a silver lining. Or so they say.

I’ve focused on silver linings my entire life: no situation was ever grim enough for me not to stubbornly search, find, and hold the silver lining up, like an insignia, for everybody to see. I’ve always been known for my smile, my positive mood, my happiness, my ability to always rejoice, no matter what. The “half full” glass kind of person.

There were times when I was feeling incredibly hopeless, or angry, or resentful. Because of people, things, or life in general. But I trained myself to find that damned silver lining, and find it I did. Every single time.

I’ve always been proud of the way I faced challenges and difficulties, refusing to be miserable, rejecting those feelings of desperation that threatened to overwhelm me. I would look into the mirror and just think, Well,  that’s the hand you’ve been dealt. How can you make the most of it?

Now, don’t get me wrong: I honestly believe that this is a great way to go through life.

However.

Sometimes you have to step back, look a situation in the eye, and admit that, hell it sucks and you aren’t going to put up with that shit anymore!

 

We all make choices. There aren’t right choices or wrong choices. Nor better or worse ones. They’re just that: choices. Choices we make because of some reasons that in that moment somehow make sense. Choices are what make you, you.

I think choices and silver linings may be connected.

Suffering from what I’ve come to think of as the “Silver Lining Syndrome”, at one point I realized that, in the attempt to defend some choices I actually deeply regretted, I fabricated silver linings. Because to disown one of my choices was to disown myself.

Being at war with my choices was being at war with myself. My sky was suddenly dark, with no clouds and no silver linings, it was foggy, impenetrable. I despised both my choices and my silver linings. I hated my unshakable happiness, I wanted to slap everyone who had ever thought me a “positive person”. I wished I could wipe out all my choices and my silver linings.

 

I had always wanted to see my life as an endless string of silver linings, but life is an endless string of choices. A silver lining is there one moment, and the next moment it’s been swallowed by its cloud. A choice? It stays with you forever. I was aware that, sometimes, I would have to make tough choices, choices that scared me, but I thought, What is worse? Sorting out the difficulties that might follow the tough choice I was too scared to make, or living my entire life hiding behind a (possibly fake) silver lining?

So I was finally able to make the decision that would change my world. From that moment on, my life has been a choice, and not a silver lining anymore.

 

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The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/