And now for something completely different. 😊
2020 has, despite it’s recent highlight (yes, singular), quite deservedly gotten a pretty bad rap for being unrelentingly difficult, hard, challenging.
We’ve had to reinvent doing things we took for granted – school/work/meetings/church now often happen from home. We’ve had to postpone visits, festivals, and cancel vacations. We’ve been grounded at home. We’ve had to rearrange our schedules to be home with our kiddos. Many have had to keep working outside their homes, and have put their lives in danger doing essential in-person work on the front lines.
Oof. It’s not for the birds.
But even before the Age of Coronavirus (I’m kinda over calling it *furrows brow* “these unprecedented times”), I saw a trend – or maybe even way of being – emerging.
We can blame it on all kinds of cultural shifts. We can definitely blame some of it on 45 and a new moral/social/political outrage in the headlines every day. We can blame it on legitimate outrage at ever-growing socioeconomic inequality, or on pervasive unjust power dynamics between law enforcement and people of color.
(This was supposed to be a lighter post, *honestly*.)
All this to say, the discomfort was happening before the Year of Our Covid 2020.
I remember my baby shower in the fall of 2018 before my 4th (my last!) babe was born. We’d let go of much baby stuff before our move to Michigan… oops… but were gifted such lovely things for our-wee-baby-to-be. And my bigger kiddos made out like bandits too.
As one does, we received preciously soft little rompers and pajamas, cushy tiny booties and snuggly homemade blankets and hats.
But omgeee… since my last babe’s birth in 2016, these soft snuggly lovelies were, like, 1000% snugglier. I’m not even exaggerating. The materials – nubbier and sqwooshier and blissyer and almost intoxicatingly cozy-like!
(Yarn crafters, blanket makers: back. me. up! Something happened.)
I remember the touch of a pastel blue and pink, donut-printed fleecy floof of a blanket made by a dear Church Lady. I brought it to my face and rubbed it against my cheek like a bizarre pregnant woman. I just couldn’t help it!
And then my kids… the aforementioned “bandits”… received oversized squashy fluffy snuggle critters. I pretty much stole my 2yo’s scruffy floppy cozy stuffed doggo on the spot. I may have slept with it in my arms that very night.
(And I may not have, honestly. But at some point soon after – and before baby boy was born – I sure as heck did!)
Outside the baby shower, I’d ordered my hugely preggo self a pair of zip up onesie pajamas. Like think toddler style, but for an 8mo pregnant 39yo.
My advanced maternal bod NEEDED them. And Amazon said, “Oh you mean something like these?”
Add to cart.
And then I started seeing – anywhere, and everywhere I shopped – fleecy, stretchy, wooly toasty socks, paired with squashy memory foam walking-on-clouds slippers. Sherpa lined fleeces. 10,000 thread count buttery-soft long underwear. Downy microfleece jackets lined with parka-like fantastically faux fur. Leggings lined in fleecy soft goodness. Synthetically soft cover ups and jackets and onesies and hats. Oversized chenille cardigans to wrap up in. Silky slippery pajama pants, with pockets. Lounge-wear for wearing 24/7. Stretchy velour hoodies, tactiley delightful. Fluffy, dense, velvety bedding sets to hunker down into, should one need to stay in bed, oh… indefinitely.
All basically kissed by the lips of angels.
In fact, the following Christmas (when the aforementioned baby-boy-to-be was a newly crowned 1yo), his big sister pretty much only put floof and cozies and snooglies in the form of clothes and comforters on her wish list.
And I became convincted: hard times call for comfortable clothes.
When life is uncertain, when every day feels like the brooding unease of a disaster movie, when every headline leaves your stomach in an ulcery knot and prayers on your tense lips, the marketers have found the solution:
YOU need the FLOOFIEST OF FLOOF!
Can’t hide under your covers all day? WEAR your covers all day, damnit!
Sweatpants used to be for around the house or maybe for the gym. Now? Have you met “joggers”? Joggers are a gosh darn WAY OF LIFE and a beautiful way of being. Wear them – and leggings (which *used to* be commonly shamed as “not pants”) – anywhere you FRICKIN’ PLEASE!
Adult-like adulting demands simply crushing your will to live? Why, you need a quick enveloping sense of security and to feel like a carefree 6yo NOW! Therapy will simply take too long. Get that girl a CUSHY HOODED TIE-DYED ONESIE AND FINGERLESS HANDWARMERS, STAT!!
Not for the babies… for the decidely NOT-so-babies. Because we’re fussy, we’re needy, and frankly, we just don’t do discomfort very well. We don’t sleep well, we can’t detach from our stress, and well… our relationships can be a bit of a mess.
We are people in need of tangible outrageously fluffy comfort going through tangibly gut-churning, migraine-inducing hard times.
Yeah, it’s what they’re selling us.
And, though I’ll always recommend and extol the benefits of getting to the root of things and bolstering resilience in (Oprah-shout) 🎶THERRR-APY🎶…
…yeah, I’ve bought in.
alive. awake. uncomfortable. 