Ever had a bad day? Ever felt low energy, or just low? No? Then get off the internet, you charlatan. Seriously, sometimes life hands you not lemons but 10-pound lemon-yellow bowling balls covered in the gunk that makes movie theater floors so sticky. And in these moments, it’s important to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and … pour a huge glass of wine and complain.

Mind you, I’m not advocating pessimism. Optimism is my jam. I believe in the practice of putting everything in perspective, and counting your blessings. But complaining is also a natural part of navigating the hills and valleys of life. It can be cathartic. And I don’t think there are hard and fast rules to who can and can’t do it. If you’re OVERdoing it, rest assured, the universe will let you know in the form of no one returning your calls or emails anymore. See? There’s basically a natural system of checks and balances for this.

I can’t help but cringe when I hear (or read) others engaged in “complaint policing.” Usually following the “unless you’ve [blank], please don’t [blank]” formula, it doesn’t prompt me to pencil that tip down for later, muttering “got it” to myself. I’ll be the first to defend your constitutional right to bemoan stuff. Because, the thing is:

😩 You don’t need to have 8 kids (or any) to be allowed to say you’re tired.

😩 You don’t have to wake up at 5am daily to claim that mornings are hard.

😩 You don’t have to have a high-risk pregnancy to complain about being pregnant. Yesterday my friend informed me that HER RIBS HAD SHIFTED during her pregnancy and I basically fell on the sidewalk and let my reproductive organs die.

😩 You don’t have to hit a certain weight threshold before you can say you feel fat today.

😩 You can be generally happy with your appearance and still feel really busted right now.

😩 You don’t have to run an ultramarathon to complain that exercise is hard. You can jog a mile and still be sore AF.

😩 You don’t have to work 12-hour days or be a brain surgeon to feel burnt out at work.

😩 You don’t have to be together for 5-plus years to be sad about a breakup.

😩 You don’t have to be single to feel lonely now and then.

😩 You can have a good job and still mope about making ends meet sometimes.

😩 You don’t have to live in Siberia to complain about the cold or the snow.

Life is a tapestry of ups and downs, each unique to the tapestry’s owner. Here’s to the good days as well as the bad, and the fact that, if we’re lucky, it almost always gets better. Oh, and here’s to wine. So, so, so much wine. 🙂