Casting shadows on the winter sky as you stood there counting crows.

Today, I was waiting in my brother's girlfriend's car until a closer time to board the coach that would take me the hell away from the seaside town where people go to end the portion of their lives that could be called interesting, and it was raining pretty bad.

I don't even just mean it was unpleasant. Anyone reading this may be unaware of the storms that have gripped the bottom half of the united kingdom for the last week or so, but there have been floods and road closures around where my family lives, and I've been worried about my flight back home, to Moony. It's that bad.

But I digress. Next to the car, on one of those low flower installments you get on promenades to make the place look nicer, was a crow. I think it was trying to get into a shell or something. Now, I know the phrase 'water off a duck's back', as in 'don't let it get under your skin, but let it go without touching you'. And it's always been kind of a good idea. It's a good job I adore cliches, because I think of that line a lot.

The water droplets on this crow were first apparent when it shook, sending the water everywhere and leaving its' feathers blessedly free of water for a few seconds until it began gathering again. What struck me, in that moment, while my brother's band played music through the speaker system and cigarette smoke curled over the top of a window, was that while the water fell onto that crows' feathers, it seemed utterly unphased.

Now, this is a hell of an extended metaphor, because what if each droplet of water were an issue of some kind. The faint ones were the little things, like doing the washing, e-mail that freely gendered individual. The more noticable droplets were things like, say, essays, university money costs. The really big ones? Well they'd be parent issues, gender identity dysphoria. You know, to take examples at random.

Sometimes, the droplets fell together, small things combining into bigger things. Deadlines, mock exams, pressure to do something to make someone blood related proud.

And then, just as if they were simply droplets of hydrogen and double oxygen, the crow would shake free its' problems, and continue on whatever undecided course the small creature had picked out over the dirt.

If I could do that, just shrug it all off and be content with myself, I would love to do so. But then, that's what these trips to Sweden are for. However, then the water started falling onto the same ink black feathers, and I realised that no matter how frequently you free yourself from problems and issues, you're never really going to be content, because the water will keep gathering. All you can do is try to make it a little easier on yourself by only attracting the small droplets, and not letting the bigger ones weigh you down.