Your Dose of Autumnal Absolution

The other night, I found myself standing in the condiment aisle of the supermarket debating about whether to buy the regular peanut butter or the natural, organic stuff. I wanted the former, but knew I should stick with the latter. It’s 10:00 PM, they’re playing The %^$#@& Fray over the PA system and I’m standing there clutching two jars of peanut butter in my hands, feeling as if I’m facing my own nutritional Waterloo. Are you serious? Has it really come to this*?

Photo by addicted Eyes

And I’m not alone. Maybe it’s a product of fall and the ghost of unfinished homework assignments past, but I’ve been hearing reports of scattered guilt outbreaks across the country. People feeling as if they’re falling down on the job of being upstanding citizens, as if they’re lacking or slacking, stressed out over doing the right thing and convinced that  the right thing couldn’t possible involve scuffling through a pile of leaves while sipping a pumpkin spice latte (Those leaves need raking and you could make that latte at home for 48 cents!). That simply will not do. In the interests of giving everyone a breather and ratcheting down the angst, I hereby offer up a little autumnal absolution. It’s okay and it will continue to be so on all of these counts (most culled from real-life examples I’ve heard recently) and so many more.

• It’s okay to wish perfectly swell people would STFU about their perfectly swell lives.
• It’s okay to feel sad/angry/out of sorts/tired and not really know or have the energy to find out why.
• It’s okay to turn your phone off.
• It’s okay not to be passionate.
• It’s okay to leave dishes in the sink overnight.
• It’s okay to take a nap or sleep late.
• It’s okay to eat kettle corn and a Kit Kat for dinner. For three nights in a row, even.
• It’s okay to take whatever job pays the bills and not care about what this says about your “career”.
• It’s okay to hate poetry.
• It’s okay to feel jealous about others’ lives and not have a rational reason.
• It’s okay to gossip as if you were back in high school.
• It’s okay to worry about dying alone, but still not do anything about it.
• It’s okay to get all your news from The Daily Show.
• It’s okay not to vacuum or sweep for weeks on end.
• It’s okay to hate Betty White.

You get the idea. Now, go start a bonfire or something.

*I ended up with the Jif. Life’s too short, kiddos.