write me well

Category: Weekly Blog

  • Emotional Listerine

    Last night, one single Watermelon Margarita and Pornstar Martini in, a friend and I decided that when it comes to relationships, the term “palette cleanser” doesn’t come close to the level of reset needed come the end of a truly bad partnership. Two months, two years – when you’ve been dealing with someone for whom it turns out the word shitstain is a nicety, you need something a little more intense than a fruit tray and a sprig of mint to get you to the next round. And a cleanse isn’t gonna do it either.

    Fuck that lemon juice and cayenne pepper – what you you really need, we decided, is emotional Listerine. And because the idea of leaving the emotional recovery process to a rebound is somewhere precariously close to high-risk and deeply nauseating, I’ve been thinking about what perfect combination of controllables would constitute the best emotional Listerine.

    Here are my findings:

    One: A Word Document / Notebook

    This is for the whinging. The rage you’d generally spew at your best friends, the cry-happy moments that come back to you and haunt you and make you wax lyrical when poetry has never been and will never be your strong suit.

    It’s just for you. Nobody ever needs to see this guy. You may write in it and never read it again, you might reread it start to finish every time you go to add ten new lines (it me). But I’m a firm believer that the process of mentally getting someone out of your system can manifest in a real, physical way. Pen to paper – fingers to keys – get on it. We can’t all be Stevie Nicks and get a Silver Springs out of our breakups, but a .doc file full of emotional nonsense? That dream we can achieve.

    Two: A Real Good Walk

    This might take you a while, because not everyone has the best walks at their disposal, and sometimes leaving the room feels impossible two (or ten) days into this process. But my god, THE THINGS A WALK CAN DO FOR YOU. Through your neighborhood, through the neighborhood six blocks over, through a park, through the fucking mall. I’m serious. Get your body moving. Remind your body of the little miracles it – and YOU – are capable of. This will go absolute miles in getting you to the next brain-phase. Walks take you places, man.

    You can use the Real Good Walk to call your friends, call your mom, and talk through how you’re managing. Everybody walks their own way. But since you’re reading my advice list, I’m going to go ahead and recommend you leave yourself alone with your thoughts. See what’s around you. And if you must needs have something to occupy your ears and mind, bring along Number Three.

    Three: THAT Playlist

    Oh, you know the playlist I’m talking about. Or maybe you don’t, in which case, let me educate you.

    This is not the playlist that’s going to make you cry. This is the one that’s going to make you run the FULL EMOTIONAL SPECTRUM. Do yourself (and me) a favor and put some really silly shit on this playlist. Put some really happy, ridiculous, you-MUST-tap-your-toes songs. The tunes that when you close your eyes transport you to that summer you spent on the lake or laying out in the grass in your best friend’s backyard. Then put some sad shit on this playlist. The crescendos that make your spine tingle. The lyrics that pull your heart strings like hot rubber bands stretching from deep deep love to full-moon-I-kind-of-want-to-cry-myself-to-sleep.

    This playlist will do for your soul what that walk you just went on did for your body. Because when you feel absolutely exhausted by what life (and specific humans) have put you through emotionally, music reminds you of exactly what extreme and beautiful notes you’re capable of feeling, and that however intense those low notes are, in the end they are as ephemeral as a two-minute, forty-six second Top 40 Pop Song. You listen to THAT playlist long enough, pretty soon you’ll be perfectly poised for Number Four.

    Four: THE Project

    The first thing to accept about the Project is that you might NEVER start, do, or finish it. The aim of The Project isn’t to actually to do any of the things. It’s to remind you of the good, old, pure fact, that if you wanted to, though, YOU COULD.

    My mental picture of The Project will forever be Gwyneth Paltrow starting her own boutique PR firm in Sliding Doors after she breaks up with her Fuckface Boyfriend Jerry, so I always associate it with painting big, blank white walls Tiffany blue and buying a new personal planner. And really, that’s the perfect mental image, because it comes with a very visceral metaphor (you PAINT THOSE WALLS with a fresh coat of emotional paint) and new stationery. That’s how the best projects always start, right?

    The Project doesn’t have to be as major or physical as starting your own PR firm. What’s most important to remember when picking and planning it, is for it to be yours. Do not let a single person in your life – not even your absolute best friend gives you advice on EVERYTHING friend – tell you what this project should be. It is 100% just for you and your emotinal well-being. The project should be the answer to the question “What would I do if nothing else claimed my attention? My time? My energy? My money?” It could be as simple as working out (SIMPLE, she says, not remembering the last time she worked out), reading a book a month, or planning that twenty-country trip you’ve wanted to go on since the first time you saw a globe.

    Don’t limit yourself. You might find that you’re capabe of more than you ever even realized.

    …

    And that’s it, guys. I reduced all of my findings to those four things, and I stand behind it. The good news is that it will burn a helluva lot less than actual Listerine, and the better news is that nobody’s here to judge your results like some #beforeandafter hashtag. It’s just you, and I am a VERY firm believer in YOU.

  • The Bucket Theory

    I’m a chronic mom-caller. Like, I may live over three thousand miles away from my mother, and I may be a grown-ass thirty-year-old woman, but if I go more than 2-3 days without speaking to my mom, it’s weird. I used to call her on my way home from work, and now that I have my own place, I call her as soon as I’m home, eating my pre-made dinner on the couch while I tell her about my day and listen in turn about hers. I’ll call her on my days off when I have literally nothing new to tell her. I’ll call her when I discover pre-filled strawberry jam and cream scones for sale at Tesco. Chron-ic.

    Whether it’s because I do such a faultless job of this on a regular basis, or because my mom has a tendency to feel like she’s a ‘bother’ if she’s the one that calls me (“I never know what you’re doing! You’re so busy. You could be at work.” “Mom, I keep telling you. If you call me and I’m busy, I just won’t pick up the phone.” I digress.) – my mom hardly ever calls me. But this afternoon I was off work, sitting at a coffee shop, when my phone rang and it was my mom. Calling me!

    We talked about a lot of things, as we always do. Work stress, life stress, good things, challenging things. And at one point, somewhere between good things and challenging things, I mentioned my Bucket Theory. I feel like I tell everyone and their mother about my Bucket Theory, so I was 110% sure I’d already not only mentioned it to my own, but explained it in depth. But it turns out I hadn’t, and because I will never not enjoy the sound of my own voice – especially when expounding my own life views – when she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard about your Bucket Theory” – I LEPT at the opportunity. And as a result, the topic is fresh on my mind, and I figured no time like the present to infect the internet with it.

    So here, un-asked for, is my Bucket Theory.

    We spend an inordinately large amount of time while we’re growing up and getting older being told exactly What Will Make Us Happy. People, society, strangers, LIFE. They all act like there’s a one-size-fits-all formula for how to make a life for yourself that genuinely brings you joy.

    What I spent my twenties doing was unlearning all of that.

    Attaining happiness is only universal in that it can always be broken down into buckets. One bucket, six buckets, twenty buckets, every person is different. The buckets come in all different sizes. Maybe yours are all tiny and easily filled; maybe some are bigger, and need a regularly scheduled top up. But the constant between everyone’s buckets is this: the sum of their parts is a Satisfying, Happy Life. (Accidentally just typed Lie, and I’m gonna go ahead and ignore what that typo is trying to tell me.) The only way your buckets can be Wrong is if they hurt people in the process of being filled. As long as you have peaceful, kind buckets, I truly think your only priority in life should be to define them and fill them however you see fit.

    I believe I’ve gotten to the place I am in life because I figured out what my buckets are and made a big deal out of prioritizing filling them the fuck up. Having my family in my life is a big bucket – but for me, geographic closeness isn’t a requirement of keeping that full. I rely heavily and happily on technology to do so. Having a job that’s satisfying, but also allows me creative freedom in my style and on my days off, is another big old bucket. It needs a regular top up in that I always want to feel driven and like I’m developing the people around me, but I’m quite certain my career bucket will never get any bigger. It will always play second fiddle (second…bucket?) to others.

    And then there are the surprise buckets – Being Near Medieval English Things turned out to be a pretty major one. Nobody told me when I was thirteen that where I live would bring me more happiness than my college degree itself. Tattoos. Financial Independence. Writing – well, no surprise there. Seven year old Kathy could have accurately drawn the size of that bucket right after she wrote her first short story about a girl sneaking off from a family picnic to find a dragon in a hillside cave. It will probably always be my biggest bucket.

    But if your career bucket is your biggest, wahey to you! You will find no judgement here. The same if being physically close to those you love is a big bucket. I get that too. Making a family. Having a dog. Achieving fame. Immersing yourself in other cultures. Helping the environment. Listening to great music. Chocolate chip cookies. They are your buckets. It is your life. Too many people get down on themselves because their buckets are different or strange or maybe even because they’re not different enough. I assure you, it doesn’t matter. Nobody has to deal with whether or not something brings you happiness and fulfillment except You.

    So if you’re looking for an extra bit of happy in your life, take a look at your buckets. And once you figure them out, there are only two things you need to do: chase their fulfillment like nobody’s business, and never apologize for it.