You know, sometimes no matter how hard you try to pull everything together, it all just hits the fan.

This month may very well be one of those months.

We’re still in the thick of things with my mom. She’s doing exceptionally well in the rehab facility, and now my Dad is considering the possibility of moving there full-time (as it offers assisted living, etc.). This is, of course, a completely bittersweet jumble of emotions to all of us. I LOVE having them 5 minutes away right now. But it is devastating to think of them not being in their technicolor house. They built that house the year I was born and to think that we won’t have any more holidays or summers there is just, well, excruciating.

It’s just a house. But it’s still a loss. It was home, even though in the past few years it’s felt less and less Like It Once Was. I see the burdens my Dad has carried alone for too long, and I feel a twinge in my gut.

After months of stress and preparation, Mistletoe Market came and went over the weekend. Leading up to it was all the stress over my parents, stress about money and inventory, and then Archer getting super duper sick at the last minute. Simon had to stay home with him from work and then on the day we set everything up, I came down with it too.

But you know how mine manifested? Full on laryngitis. It was pretty much at this point that I had Major Ugly Cry #1,281. Except silently because LARYNGITIS. We joked that Rita was Penn and I was Teller. Or whichever one is mute.

The highlight was getting to spend a LOT of quality time with dear bestie Rita and delightfully hilarious Nancy. And I cannot say enough amazing things about the Junior League team that pulled it all together. They took SUCH good care of us and put us in such a prominent position.

But even with everything aligning right for me in that regard, it was a depressingly low sales weekend. I *barely* covered my costs, capping off what has already been a terrible year for me sales-wise. And all the other retailers there had the same experience for the most part. It is so so hard to run a small business. The highs are highs, and the lows are lows. And this particular weekend was one of the lows for sure. It may look one way on social media and then be something completely different in real life. Most retailers are making the assumption that nobody’s spending money because frankly, it’s a tenuous time. People are losing jobs, there’s unrest in the world, people are dying in beautiful cities while sitting in sidewalk cafes. It all feels so uneasy, doesn’t it? It makes everything else seem so frivolous. Don’t you want to go home and curl up under a blanket, and hold your loved ones near? Because I do.

It’s a hard season. Life is hard. But we pick up and move on. We can do hard things. Because there’s always somebody else who is doing something harder than us – and we must get beyond our own trouble to gain a wider perspective. Because like my Grandmother Blanche liked to say, “This too shall pass.”