It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the language which has a word for “joy at others’ misfortunes” also has a word for something along the lines of “joy in anticipating”. Of course German has such a word: Vorfreude.

Admittedly, for it not to be a surprise, you’d have to have considered it, which I hadn’t, before I read this article about it earlier in this week. Not a word which came up when I studied German at school. Shame, really. Perhaps it would have made German seem a friendlier sort of language than Schadenfreude. (Which Spellcheck doesn’t like: it thinks Schadenfreude should be Scheherezade. Which is a joy all of its own!) Perhaps then I wouldn’t have attempted an essay on food and drink to be about witches’ teas and fairy-juice, because all the ordinary food-and-drink words were boring, and I thought the examiners might like something new to read. (My teacher objected, so they got a hard-drinking, chain-smoking sort of essay instead.)

But back to Vorfreude.

This year of fairy cake joys, of finding the fun and the optimism and happiness in the ordinary, seems to me to be a Year of Vorfreude. It’s about finding things to look forward to and climbing out of the depths of despair we were otherwise in danger of falling into. Of finding new things to do, new places to explore. Little, everyday, things. Of feeling like we’re living and not just going through the motions.

Some bigger things too, but those are easy to look forward to. “Oh, it’s Monday again!” is less easy to look forward to, especially if you dread going to work. My daily joy is in anticipating a long nap for Tiny after a morning of running around, either at playgroup or in the garden. It doesn’t always happen, of course, but practising finding the little joys helps to mitigate for disappointments when the anticipated joy is perhaps not as joyful as you’d hoped.

Looking for the joys has also helped me through the damp, drizzly start to Spring, when I might otherwise have sunk into a slump on the sofa, or planned an escape to a sunny Mediterranean island like Corfu. To be fair, planning such an escape has helped in the past, when stressful jobs have become overwhelming. But this time, I’ve simply wrapped Tiny and me in waterproofs and wellies and we’ve gone puddle-jumping. Or just for a walk to the library, to find more cheerful sing-song children’s books to read.

Although if the sun doesn’t make some sort of appearance soon, I may not be able to keep it up. There is a limit, after all! But, for now, I’m looking on the Bright Side of Life.