Today, I was in the middle of working out when my daughter told me that our dog had an accident. What I thought would turn into a two-minute thing ended up being an hour long. Because the “accident” was actually a sick dog from last night, so everything that came out of her mouth and butt had dried on our tile floors. So fun, right? Disinfectant didn’t help to soften anything, so I put our dog outside on her leash in the backyard and got to work scraping poop off our floors with a plastic fork.

Glamorous, I know. Well, as I was doing this, my two-year-old decided to smack my four-year-old over the head with a ukelele, and somehow, our dog had wrestled free from her leash, terrorizing the local neighbors with all four pounds of her ferocity. At this point, I’m covered in both disinfectant and poop, my child is screaming in his room in timeout for hitting his sister, and an old man comes to my door (when I’m still just wearing a sports bra and leggings because, again, I was mid-workout) to tell me that my dog got out.

It was a literal sh*t show.

Mid-day, we went to pick up our groceries, and I decided lunch was not happening, so we were gonna get Chick-fil-a. I get Chick-fil-a, get everything my toddlers asked for, only for them to not want to eat any of it. So I sat in the Walmart parking lot, as two toddlers screamed that they didn’t like their food and that they needed water (because I forgot that) for thirty minutes.

The day continued on, pretty much just getting worse from there. And through it all, I was really sad. Honestly, just so freaking upset.

And at first, I tried to reset and push it away. I tried to think of the little moments of happiness, like when my two-year-old laughed and snuggled with me. I tried to think of how lucky I am that I have two beautiful, healthy kids that I adore.

But I still kept coming back to the same thing. I was sad.

People tell you to push away your sadness. To think of everything you’re grateful for. And maybe that fixes things on some days. But other days, it won’t touch the despair. Do people have it worse? Absolutely. But does that invalidate everything we’re feeling? No. No, it doesn’t.

I used to tell people that if it wouldn’t matter in five years from now, don’t spend more than five minutes thinking about it. But, I don’t think that way anymore. I’m telling you that it’s okay to be sad. If you’re frustrated or hurt, if you’re overwhelmed and full of despair, don’t push away your feelings.

It’s okay to be sad sometimes. It’s okay to feel like a day was a total and complete disaster. You do not have to look at your life through someone else’s hardship-lens. It’s okay to cry and live in those moments just as much as you do your happy ones.

Everything sucks right now. I’m sad that people are so divided. I’m sad that people are dying, due to multiple causes. And I know I’m not alone. So yeah, we might have a lot to be grateful for right now. But, there’s still a whole host of things that weigh us down. Pretending they don’t exist isn’t going to help us. Live in your moments, feel your emotions, and then, when you wake up the next day, press reset. But don’t bury the hard moments because someone else has it harder. Your feelings are valid.