Learning to dance, sing and run in the rain..................

haha! there you go depressed Samantha,
 nice bit of sarcasm for you

If & when my depression comes back I'm going to seriously piss myself off with my relentless positivity when I look back on these blogs!

It's June right now but it's been cold at some points, dark and cloudy and there's been lots and lots of rain.  I'm not the kind of person who hates winter and only likes summer.  In fact Christmas and the build up to it is my favourite time of the year. I love snuggling up in a blanket with a nice soup or hot chocolate in front of a film when it's raining hard outside & I still get excited about snow! That being said, once Christmas is over I get quite anxious for spring to come after a while and the past few years, winter seems to have been dragging on until what we would normally consider spring or summertime.  Okay so I did go to Brazil this year in February so I can't really complain, but erm, anyway!  

never seen this
Dolce Vita film!
looks good!

I normally quite enjoy running in the park but I'm not the kind of person who will run regardless of the weather and I usually only go when it's not too hot or too cold and when there's no precipitation.  Over the previous winter I ended up being too sedentary because of not wanting to going out in the rain or cold weather and this contributed to me putting on a lot of weight and losing muscle tone.  I have a gym membership at the moment but running is free and I live very near a nice park.  Usually once I'm in the gym I can get into it but the thought of the bus journey and traffic on the way there ends up being such a hurdle to wanting to go.  Given the unpredictability of British weather I can't keep waiting for the weather to be nice in order for me to go for a run.

And so  I'm afraid the cheesy inspirational saying is right, don't wait for the storm to pass, learn to dance, sing or run in the rain!

A few days ago I set out to go for a run whilst was it was dry but quite dark and cloudy. I did one lap around the park (about 1 mile) and then as I started to head back it started to come down really heavily.  I had a feeling this might happen so I had put some rain songs on my spotify. I put on 'Naked in the Rain' by Red Hot Chilli Peppers and legged it home!  It gave me a real adrenaline rush and certainly motivated me to run faster! (Really brought out the Phoebe in me!)
https://open.spotify.com/user/samanthapottinger/playlist/1l3cYVz8
MFDcGkGyz9RzGa

I got quite soaked in a very short space of time but it was a really interesting sensation, the contrast of the warm heat and the cool rain. & yes rain makes my hair go horrible but as I get older I'm starting to care less about these things!

I ended up with an involuntary
80s perm!

I've only done it once and I can't say I love it yet, but I'm sure it might grow on me with time and I've made a playlist of rain songs that might help me embrace it! Giving new things a try is always a positive.  I've been through depression and I certainly understand the feeling of wanting to stay in your comfort zone and if you're not ready to try something different that's fine.  But it can be great being more of a 'Yes' man or woman and can make life a lot more interesting and exciting.

Something I will be trying again for sure!

:( R.I.P. Prince