"Did you know, that according to science, the smile comes before the feeling of happiness". My dad told me this when I was 13 or 14, around the time the big black cloud started assembling above my head. I can't remember a time when smiling came naturally to me, when I smiled it felt like my face would crack and crumble like Voldemort in the first Harry Potter, when I did manage an accidental genuine smile, I'd think to myself "look! I'm doing it!". Smiling when I wasn't happy was particularly difficult because I never felt like I was doing it right and I knew I must have looked ridiculous. Nevertheless, I wasn't a child to argue with science, so I practiced every day before I left for school in front of the mirror. I would freeze my face in the smile and keep it there while I walked to school, waiting for my happiness to kick in. But somewhere along the way gravity made my face heavy and eventually my smile slid down down down until it melted across my shoes and onto the pavement. 13 years on, I still practice my smile in front of the mirror to check that I'm doing it right. And that my face hasn't cracked open.
