When it comes to my nationality, I often play both sides of the fence, or perhaps more appropriately, the Atlantic. Though I’ve lived in the UK for ten years and have British parents, I spent the first 21 years of my life in the US, where I was born. I hold passports to each country.

As such, my shifting cultural loyalties can feel like a table tennis (or ping pong) match. I have a well-rehearsed diatribe about why I don’t live in the US and don’t plan to go back: guns, the ludicrous and ruinous healthcare system, poor infrastructure, no government-mandated vacation time, and just the general sense of hyper-individualistic doom. However, at the same time, I’m quick to get exasperated the Brits’ lack of go-getter-ism, appalling customer service, passive aggressive politeness, and insistence on thinking that a stoic lack of emotions is a positive aspect of the national identity. It is not.

However, as we’ve staggered out of (or back into) the pandemic, I’ve found myself feel more at home on the side of the Atlantic where I live, England. It’s not because the government has handled things well — on that, don’t even get me started—but rather, a decade of living here has trained me to have a high tolerance for the idea that things probably won’t go well. The best way forward is to learn to live with that, and possibly make a joke about it.

About a month ago, when the Delta variant first started gaining steam in the UK, the US media was discordantly jubilant. One New York Times lifestyle story after another heralded the return to our old way of life, vaccines blazing, Covid be damned. There’s no looking back! We’re vaccinated now! How silly, I thought. Have they not been watching the same movie as I have for the past 18 months? Where do they get this unbridled optimism? Why do they think they are the exception? Ah yes, they are American.

Terrified of the prospect of relaxing into a post-Covid free-for-all, only to have to re-enter Covid caution mode one a month later, I decided to not really change much about my habits. I have both vaccines, but still socialize and eat/drink in outdoor venues. If I do hang out with people inside, I know they’re vaccinated. I don’t plan to stop wearing a mask indoors anytime soon.

It’s not that I want Covid to stick around, it’s just that my allegiance is now more on the pessimistic end of the scale. It’s easier to just keep plodding along, doing my best, making life as good as it can be under these conditions — rather than get my hopes up and up and up, only to watch them crash back down again.The irony is that in this acceptance comes some solace; I’ve realized recently that I don’t actually mind if things stay how they are for some time. I’ve made the current conditions as good as they can be, even if that’s not great.

A more prosaic example of this is that most cliched British topic of conversation: the weather. Growing up, I generally viewed the weather as “likely to get better.” If I looked out the window and thought I could get away with just a cardigan, I assumed the best and didn’t also take a jacket. It took a decade, but now my assumptions have flipped. Things are always “likely to get worse.” Last weekend while visiting family, a forecast for rain meant I was fully prepared with waterproofs, umbrella, appropriate footwear — not exactly the sundress day I had envisioned, alas. In fact, we didn’t get a drop of rain all day and sat happily in the garden. My pessimism meant I enjoyed the weather far more than I would have if I assumed the best.

It may sound counterintuitive, but I’ve come to believe that optimism can actually be quite oppressive. It can be such a relief to not have to always look the bright side, find the silver lining, search for the grand lesson in the grim reality. That kind of optimism can prevent you from acceptance of the fact that life, much of the time, involves a lot of suffering. Letting that in allows you to fully enjoy the cracks where life is joyful, too—often when you least expect it.