She is called Sunny. Her real name,
matronly, monotonous Martha, was only used very briefly in her early life. Very
briefly until one day, as she sat glowering and gloomy in her high chair,
silently passing judgment on the creamed corn and mashed carrots being served
to her on a thick rubbery spoon, her mother observed, not unkindly, “well,
aren’t you just a cloudy day! We should call you Sunny.” And as those things so
often go, they did.
As a child Sunny learned that it’s
a lot of trouble to be gloomy. People were forever asking her what was wrong
and trying to help her, solve her problems, cheer her up. She found them
pandering, patronizing, annoying. She wanted to be left alone, to color, to
read, to play with her dolls, and didn’t need some meddlesome adult suggesting
that she go play with the other kids, or sing along, to pull her sleeping bag
up to her chin and share her deepest giggly secrets like the girls did in the
Young Adult books she bought through the Troll Book Order. Eventually she found
it was easier to feign cheerfulness, to invest in a little smile and force a
little laugh than it was to maneuver through awkward probing questions from
concerned teachers, parents, strangers. Though she never lost the murky shadows
that tainted her outlook as she got older she forced the darkness inside and on
the outside she became, well, Sunny.
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