On silliness (and tea cosies)

“Never trust a man who, when left alone with a tea cosy, doesn’t try it on.”           Billy Connolly

I don’t know if this is a universal thing, but from time to time* I find myself being what can only be described as….silly.

Not silly in an endearing way. Not in an ‘I’m wearing a teacosy on my head in an attempt to make you smile’ kind of a way. Not that at all. (Though on good days I can do that too…)

Silly in an ‘I really don’t know what I’m doing and everything feels a bit wrong and important and I don’t like this very much’ kind of a way.

I notice that it takes just a short hop from this kind of silliness to finding myself in the middle of arguments and self-righteousness and storming about. And just another short hop from there to staring gloomily into a future that looks terrible and must be avoided at all costs.

It’s very easy to take this kind of silliness really seriously. It seems to demand it of me. It can feel impolite to refuse.

But in the midst of the taking-seriously, I find there is relief in seeing that it’s really just silliness underneath.

Instead of coming up with explanations and blaming and flouncing, I’m learning that I can simply say – to myself and those around me – “Please bear with me, I don’t know what I’m doing today. I’m going to try again tomorrow.”

And very often, when tomorrow arrives, I’ve forgotten what I was getting all flouncy about anyway.


So I’m curious…do you do ‘silly’ too?

If so, how do you handle it?


*Ok, so when I say ‘from time to time’, what I actually mean is, ‘quite often’.