You had a bad break-up and you feel stuck in bed. Here are some things you can do.

1. Stop listening to Adele

I know.  She’s singing what you can’t say. She is strumming your pain with her fingers and killing you softly with her song. But it’s not helping. You’re adding sad to sad. If it were your leg broken instead of your heart, you wouldn’t break the other leg to feel better, because you’re not an idiot. So stop with the Adele—and that goes for Patsy Cline and Smokey Robison, too. Sorry.

2. Do not call, text, email, or “bump into” them

You need distance—it’s all that’ll make you feel better right now. Let’s be honest: there’s no emoticon that takes away months of fighting and bitterness. Sorry.

3. Stop playing conversations out in your mind

You are torturing yourself. I know in your head you can say just the thing that takes it all away and makes it better; you can say one sentence and suddenly they’ll change. But let’s be real: if you got anywhere near that conversation you’d yell or cry or both. More importantly:  you can’t change them. Even if you say it all perfectly. Even if the snow starts falling at that exact moment. Sorry.

4. Eat something

For god’s sake, it’s Friday. You broke up on Tuesday. You have in that time consumed a pot of coffee and nothing else. I know your heart is hurting, but stick a goddamn muffin in that face hole of yours. Eat that carb—and I don’t want hear any whiney emo-kid garbage about how you feel like you’re dead. You’re not dead. You’re alive, and being stupid, so eat something.

5. Stay the hell away from your other ex

I know: it sounds like a great idea, but in the same vein as breaking the other leg to heal the first, opening an old wound won’t fix your new one. So save yourself an uncomfortable morning of pretending it meant something and remember the reasons it didn’t work the first time.

6. Know that it’ll be okay

Shake your head “no” all you want—you will get over this. As much as you think you don’t want to, you’ll fall out of love. You’ll walk by all the places you two went and you’ll forget to think about him. You’ll hear that album and you won’t remember listening to it on the on the back deck together. You’ll run into him, and it’ll be just like before you started dating: he’ll just be someone you don’t really know. Sorry.

Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to get up. You’re going to get up because you are better than this. You are going to get up and eat a muffin.  Call up a bud, get drunk, and sing “No Diggity” at karaoke tonight.

It’ll be okay.

Love,
Alice