The picnic had been planned for two whole weeks.
Scarlett had picked out the blanket. Helped choose the sandwiches. Counted down the days on the calendar in her bedroom, crossing off each one with a satisfied little tick.
Then the rain came.
Not light rain. Not the kind that might clear up.
Heavy, grey, all-day rain, hammering against the window while Scarlett stood watching it with her arms crossed and her chin wobbling.
“It’s not fair,” she said. “I wanted it so much.”
Her mum tried to help. “We could do something else fun instead”
“I don’t WANT something else!” Scarlett said, and stomped off to her room, where she sat on her bed and let the disappointment sit heavy in her chest.
Lenny found her there a little while later.
“The picnic got cancelled,” Scarlett told him, even though he clearly already knew.
“It did,” said Lenny.
“I was so excited. I had it all planned. And now it’s just... not happening.”
“That’s a hard feeling,” said Lenny. “Disappointment is heavy, isn’t it?”
Scarlett nodded, not trusting her voice.
“It’s allowed to feel really big,” Lenny continued. “Even though it’s just a picnic. The size of the disappointment isn’t really about how big the thing was. It’s about how much you were looking forward to it.”
“I was looking forward to it SO much,” Scarlett said, and her voice wobbled properly this time.
Lenny sat with her while the wobble turned into tears, and didn’t try to rush her through it or fix it or talk her out of it. He just stayed.
After a while, the tears slowed.
“Can we still do the picnic another day?” Scarlett asked.
“We can,” said Lenny. “It won’t be the same as today would have been. But it can still be good.”
Scarlett thought about that. “It’s not the same as if it had happened today.”
“No,” Lenny agreed. “And that’s okay to feel sad about. Both things can be true; it can still happen, and you can still be disappointed that it didn’t happen the way you wanted.”
That evening, Scarlett and her mum had an indoor picnic on the living room floor, blanket and all, with sandwiches and lemonade, while rain streamed down the window.
It wasn’t the same.
It was still good.
🫶 Dream big dreams.