335. Tube Mice

Finding the positive moments is not easy for everyone. Julia shares how she tries to point out the okay things to the cynical people in her life.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Julia: I live in a family of miserable so and sos. My partner and his two eldest children, who are 13 and 11, seem determined to see the worst in every situation.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they don’t have plenty of wonderful attributes too, but if negativity were an Olympic sport, they’d be champions.

Where my glass is half full, theirs is not only half empty, but the contents are disgusting, and they always hated that glass, and it’s all your fault!  They live an objectively privileged life, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to them.  Worst day ever might as well be their motto.  They spill a drink and it puts them in a strop that lasts an hour, rather than just wiping it up and cracking on with a nice evening.

They’ll open the front door and say something like, Oh god no, I’m not leaving the house. It’s foggy.  What’s wrong with fog for goodness sake? It’s literally precipitation giving the world a hug.  Our flight gets delayed and you’d think the world was ending. But isn’t that a great excuse to treat yourself to a Toblerone from the Duty Free?

Seeing the positive has always come easily to me. No matter how bleak the situation, I’ve always been able to spot a glimmer of silver lining somewhere.  But frankly, this barrage of negativity was really getting me down.  One day, a few years back, this whole situation crystallised for me. My partner and I had gone for an actual date.

To the theatre. I’d worn a dress and everything.  It had been a lovely evening and we were heading home on the Tube. That’s London’s Underground Rail Network, what most cities call the Metro.  We’d just reached the platform at Hoban Station. We were holding hands. Tired, but, I thought, happy.  I turned right and started to head along the platform.

He tugged my hand back. Where are you going? he said, suddenly irritable.  To the far end of the platform, I replied.  Why? He asked. Because that’s where the tube mice hang out.  In London, tube mice are an institution. They’re the plucky little rodents that live in the underground rail network, scavenging dropped crumbs from people’s overpriced breakfast croissants or late night kebabs, and drinking, presumably, groundwater that’s leaked through into these hundred and something year old tunnels.

Their fur is black, though whether that’s their natural colour or the result of the soot and grime of the tube is anyone’s guess.  I love seeing the little critters scampering about between the tracks and hopping up to the platform to forage for takeaway wrappers like veritable wombles.  A touch of wildlife in the heart of the city, making the best of a tough gig.

So, backtrack to that moment. I turn right, my partner resists, he asks why I want to go that way, and I say, Because that, that’s where the tube mice hang out.  And his reply was one single tiny word that instantly told me the difference between us.  What he said was, so?  In that moment, I finally understood. I understood that he didn’t understand.

He didn’t get how to see joy in little things. He doesn’t get a lift from seeing sunshine break through a thundercloud or learning an obscure medieval insult or coming up with a terrible pun.  Every DIY activity or family art challenge is an opportunity for things to go wrong.  Maybe it stems from a fear of failure, or a sense of overwhelm at life’s never ending to do list.

Or maybe he’s taken to heart that statistic about how it takes more muscles to frown than to smile, and he’s trying to get his exercise quota purely through frowning.  But it’s rubbed off on the kids too, or their negativities rubbed off on him, or they all feed and reinforce each other’s crabbiness in a grumbly, cheerless spiral of doom.

I am immensely grateful for my naturally positive attitude. It must be tough living in a world devoid of joy and sparkle, and I can’t force them to be joyful. I can’t even use the word joy in their presence because it puts them off and they tell me how annoying I am for always looking on the bright side.

But little by little I can try to introduce moments of levity. Telling a bad joke or pointing out a rainbow, studiously ignoring the backlash, and celebrating the rare moments that someone joins my side.  A year and a half ago I gave birth to twins. These glorious little humans are just the teammates I needed.

Their default setting is joy, curiosity, delight, wonder. And their energy is infectious, it percolates through the family.  They see rain not as an imposition, but as an opportunity to splash in puddles.  They have endless fun simply hiding behind a door, then squealing with laughter as they run out to surprise you.

And, among  the range of animals that they’ve learned to emulate,  How does a sheep go? Baa. How does a lion go? Roar.  They have added the humble mouse.  How does a mouse go? Eek, eek.  So now, when the general grumpy gutsness of the rest of the family gets too much for me, I can take a deep breath and think,  it’s going to be okay.