How To Cure a Broken Heart

Just kidding. Do you realize how rich I’d be if I actually had the cure for a broken heart? My OWN FAMILY would have to reach me through an assistant because I know those freeloaders would hit me up for money. I wish I knew, I really do. Then I wouldn’t have to watch the Russian car accidents that are the people I know passing through the bowels of confusion that follows getting your feelings and vulnerability smashed on the ground after a break up.

Diane Lane, in Under the Tuscan Sun(a masterpiece, BTW), said that a break up should kill you. I don’t disagree. When your heart is writhing, you should die for a little bit — and in some ways, I guess you do. Your hope tucks itself into its deathbed and succumbs. Your spirit takes a dirt nap. I can see the plastic funeral flowers now, my own epitaph reading:

HERE LIES A DUMB BITCH WHO PUT TOO MUCH STOCK INTO A RELATIONSHIP THAT FAILED AND STRUCK HER DEAD

RIP RIP, me. I am NOT in a better place. Love stinks. Wah, wah. Let this corpse that HE DOESN’T LOVE ANYMORE rot.

But, alas, we do not die, despite our greatest efforts to will ourselves into comatose. We continue to live, cry in showers, parse through all the past however many months, trying to find the red flags and clues we missed that somehow tricked us into believing this person was THE ONE (she hated your cat, bro! COME ON!). Still, this shit hurts. You feel like you’ve been sucker punched in your lungs, in your blood system, in the ideal that every Nora Ephron movie and MTV Real World sold you on. You feel duped, swindled, bamboozled. Like a giant piece of dog shit, bagged and tossed (if that, because some people are irresponsible assholes EVEN with our feelings), trying to breathe in a suffocating environment.

Well, my sweet broken angel, the red light is blinking and no, I won’t have the secretary charge your insurance, so take a seat.

For a while, be it a fortnight, months, years, you’re going to feel like you’re the only person in the world who has been plagued by heartbreak. Never mind the human condition or the fact that Swingersis a movie, but let yourself be selfish. Mull this over. Heartbreak is a non-discriminating bug that has sunk its stinger into almost everyone on Earth — if they were lucky enough to experience the stupidity and overwhelming euphoria that is loving anything. Look! You have something in common with Barack Obama, after all!

Everyone has their fixes. Sometimes you fill the void with ice cream or movies or weenies that came from swiping whatever direction on Tinder. Or, if you’re like me, you cut your hair, move to a different country, reclaim every damn thing in your life, start to feel better, then you see old boy when you go home for Christmas and all the progress you’ve made unravels and you’re tossed back to start. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. But progress isn’t linear. There will be starts and stops. Fits and fixes. And eventually things will move forward and you will realize they have been moving forward all along.

Sometimes things don’t work out because they are not meant to work out and even in the throes of heartbreak, we have to remember this. We have to remind ourselves that there are billions of people in the world and the only one who is with us from womb to mothereffin’ tomb is the person who looks us in the mirror every morning.

There are so many reasons why things don’t work out, yet in our most dire moments, we seem to ignore that he was avoidant, that she was cruel, or that raising kids with the guy would absolutely SUCK. We remember how her smile lit up a room or how playing ping pong with him that one time was like, seriously the best moment in the history of ever. Completely forgetting that he didn’t floss and called his mom the C WORD or that she hated how you ate popcorn and how you had to gently place those kernels in your garbage disposal mouth, feeling uncomfortable during every movie. You don’t want to live that way. You don’t want to eat popcorn like you have chopstick fingers! And you shouldn’t have to.

Being single, especially following a break up, is the best time to get back into the shit you love. You don’t have to catch a cold to feel wanted. Shoot, go to a gas station at 10 PM and some crusty dude in a Honda Civic will remind you that you’re still poppin’, ma! You still got it. Someone calling off a relationship that probably would not have worked in the long run does not negate all the magic that is you. It also does not negate the love you two shared together. You can have both. You might wish a car fire on them right now, but eventually you will appreciate the lessons they taught you and the freedom they gave you after pulling a Splitsville.

Feel it. Feel every emotion you are feeling. Let yourself run through everything. Hate their dumb face. Hate their dumb accent. Whatever you need to do. Watch movies. Listen to all the break up songs that now have meaning. Work out. Distract yourself. And don’t go look at their social media. I don’t know why people do this (habit, maybe), but that is like walking up to the front windows of a house and watching the shit that goes on inside and this family has sugar cereal and your family has freaking generic brand cereal and you’re going to be jealous and IT WILL KILL YOU. Don’t torture yourself, bro. The grass is always greener on the other side, and sometimes it’s because those people are watering that shit with their own tears and why would they ever post THAT online?

What will NOT mend your broken heart is nosediving into toxic behavior. The haram of girls or guys who do not love you but want your body are not going to ramen noodle bridge the chunk of your soul that is gaping. There is no amount of wine or cocaine or I don’t know, eating Crunchwrap Supremes that will soak up the stream of leaky resentment that flows out of your being.

There is always going to be one person waiting for you when another takes a sledgehammer to your chest cavity. And that person is you. Cliché as it is, you do not need another person. Eventually, you will notice your creepy self standing there, begging you to love yourself again, telling you to take yourself on a date and dammit, take a shower first. No more do you have to answer texts inquiring about where you are or who you’re with or did you really need to buy that Nerf gun? (Yes, you did. For science. And because you make your own money!) You’re too good and optimistic to let a break up derail your life entirely. You’re too much of a boss ass bitch (this has no gender, by the way) to be down in the dumps, crying your boobies off for an eternity and shutting the concept of love down with it. Do not allow yourself to become devoid of feelings. There is love to be felt on this earth and it will meet you again.

I wish I had the cure for heartbreak. I would snake oil salesman it to every household in America. I would own islands like Sir Richard Branson and have Beyonce come sing to me every single time I wanted her to.

It takes time. And hope. And sometimes we need to resurrect that hope Billy from Hocus Pocus style, watching it cut open its lips and tell us that it is still ALIVE, and our witch heart couldn’t keep it down. You will eventually feel better and your heart will be mended with a scar, a reminder of the love you once felt and had. And you will be grateful to feel something, but DON’T GO LOOK AT THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA.