Falalallama: The Ugly Christmas Sweater That Could

It all started with this Falalallama sweater:

And then a little Falalallama mini-rant in my home away from home, Mildly Offensive Fiber Artists (a little 25,000 member Facebook group you might have heard of):

But as I moved through unpacking the groceries, I realized that there were so, so many more offensive things than the Falalallama sweater I purchased:

• I’ve just started a low carb diet so I had to read every freaking label before I put something in the cart.
• I forgot to buy half the shit I actually need because I didn’t have time to make a list before we left for the store.
• I didn’t make a meal plan for next week either. So we’re going to be eating red meat with a side of Campbell’s soup for a couple of weeks.
• While transporting groceries home, one of the bags on the backseat slipped and knocked over the milkshake that was sitting in Smalls’ cupholder (leftover from dinner on the way to something on Tuesday). Most of it ended up INSIDE the bag of groceries, so I had to wash everything in that bag before I put it away. So now I have to clean the car in a snowstorm because have you ever smelled rancid milkshake when it gets heated up?
• Maybe I can wait until it stops snowing.
• I bought three blocks of cheddar and two boxes of butter. When I was putting things away, I observed three blocks of cheddar and two boxes of butter in the fridge. I buy these things every time I go to the store and I haven’t been fucking home to use the stuff I already have.
• There was no place for me to put groceries away because I still had Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge. So I had to clean the fridge, take the trash out, empty the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, and wipe down the counters.
• All of this means that the entire grocery purchasing process took me approximately five fucking hours.
• While cleaning the kitchen I discovered Smalls’ lunchbox, which I hadn’t cleaned out from the last time I packed his lunch (1.5 weeks ago, as we were down to cracker dust and confetti corn which is the sort of lunch teachers tut-tut because nutrition). The soup container had leaked all over the inside of his lunchbox and it smelled like death. I dry heaved the entire time I was scrubbing it out.
• Have you been watching the news lately?
• I haven’t touched my yarn in weeks. I haven’t done anything creative in weeks. I can barely call myself a crocheter at this point. I mostly feel like a yarn hoarder, because I somehow keep buying more even though I’m not turning it into anything.
• I missed posting my yarn sales last Sunday, and then for the entire week could not come up with the time to do it.
• Instead of doing All The Things I set out to do today, I popped open a beer (whooooops, forgot that beer had carbs and put it back in the fridge to save for the beef stew later) and am sitting here looking at Falalallama sweaters and socks on the internet and blasting Beck’s Colors for the eleventy millionth time this week because that album is life.
• This mug though:

This has sort of been my entire last few months (absent the Falalallama sweater, which is new). I’m chucking 2017 in the fuckit bucket and calling it a year. Because I realize that none of this is about the fucking grocery trip or how messy my house is or whether the tree is up yet.

It’s about things that too big for me to fix.

It’s about swimming around in a current of mostly okayness while the undertow licks my ankles.

It’s about sexual assault and wildfires and snow in Florida and discrimination and homeless families and abused children and the fucking wall and North Korea and Russia and Jerusalem and health insurance and taxes and aging parents and all of the other BIG THINGS rattling around in my brain.

All of this probably makes me sound miserable, right?

Nope.

I’m pretty happy. If not happy, at least content.

I know I’m ok because I can look at everything that’s going on in my space and understand that they’re just the little things that make up a life. I feel the anxiety but can step outside of it.

I know I’m ok because I can watch the news and accept that there are many horrible things I can do nothing about.

I know I’m ok because I can also see opportunities where I’m able to help and have the means and energy to do so.

I haven’t always been able to do this or know that I’m ok.

So instead of doing All The Things I set out to do today, I’m sitting at the kitchen table writing about not doing them because that’s what I need to be doing right now to stay afloat.

That’s my wish for you in the upcoming year – that you are able to find ways to stay afloat in a current of at least mostly okayness. And if you can’t, know that there are lots of people out there ready to invite you into their lifeboat.