Cookies, a fat sack and the ladder to hell
30 Apr 2013
How I got over it
I decided to get really real for this post and not focus on the things I get paid to write about, like my beloved little zombie friends and apocalypse beauty tips. I think it’s an important part of the purging process, especially when you keep things inside for a long time. We all know breakups suck, especially when they drag on and on, or if you’re part of one of those on-again/off-again roller coaster rides that are so satisfying yet, at the same time, gut-wrenching and bloody.
When the ex-love-of-my-life called to say he missed me and was thinking about me, I was a little surprised. I received that same phone call from him many times in the past, but this time, he’d just gotten married—the weekend before. Did I mention our last attempt at a go-around was just six months prior? And that the grand finale absolutely shredded my heart? While my husband calling an ex wouldn’t be my ideal scenario for the first week of marriage, I won’t give in to speculating about whether his is a happy marriage or a sham. I sincerely want him to be super happy and live an amazing life.
Truth be told—up until this phone call, I really thought I was over it. But there are always those vestiges that linger, even when you move on and are with someone else who’s better for you. I don’t think that’s a bad thing really; when you truly love and care about someone, you’re always going to have traces of feelings for them. That’s what love is. But even though my life is amazing and phenomenal, it still felt like someone dropkicked me in the stomach while wearing cinder blocks for shoes.
This time, I concocted the most amazing formula to get over it. While I did, of course, indulge in the cliche marathon phone call to my best friend, I’m not trying to spend weeks reading self-help books and hitting psychoanalysis, so I figured out my own decadent approach for cheering myself up. Read on.
- I baked myself cookies. I never just bake for myself, so this time I made my favorites—classic chocolate chip cookies and red velvet cupcakes—and had them for dinner. And breakfast.
- I bought myself a sick pair of Jimmy Choos, an equally sick pair of jeans, a hot minidress and a fat sack of weed. Not in that order, but all within a 24 hour period.
- I went for a run in nature. The canal by my house counts as nature, right? Anyway, I don’t run—I actually abhor it. And that’s the first time I’ve ever said, let alone written, the word “abhor.” While I hate running with a passion 364 days out of the year, when you want to zone way out and squeeze every last ounce of emotion out of your body, it really does the trick.
- I climbed the ladder to hell. Okay, not literally, but “Jacob’s Ladder,” this ominous treadmill-ish machine at my gym. You climb up it with both your hands and feet, and the faster you go, the more difficult it gets. I climbed that evil thing until I was seriously about to purge my cupcake breakfast all over my fellow gym rats. I had to go sit in my car for like 10 minutes afterwards, but it still felt amazing.
- I had a dance party by myself. Not the usual stuff I would dance to in a bar, like hip hop or house, but old school punk rock that makes you want to thrash around and jump in a mosh pit. I fell into bed exhausted after this step—it may even be a better workout than Jacob’s Ladder.
Don’t be sad because it ended—be happy because it happened.
—Dr. Seuss
