Recipe for mending a broken heart in 50 days

If someone comes along and devastates you--ruins you for what will feel like the rest of your life--you will feel very lucky if you can do the following:

Find good friends. 

Cry to your mom, if she'll hear it. Schedule dinners and brunches with people who love you, even if your limbs feel too heavy to pull out of bed, even if you know you're going to cry in front of them and come home feeling soggy, drained and bruised. Let a very good friend tuck you into their bed and hold you while you weep. 

Find a professional.

He or she will probably say the same things that your friends are telling you, like, "It's better to know about this now than later" but somehow it will sink in differently. 

Find someone who's worse off than you are, and help them.

Maybe a sick, abused dog who no longer trusts anyone either. You can learn to trust each other.

Find good things.

Be relentless about this. Feed yourself good food. See doctors. Exercise. Get enough sleep. Get a haircut. Buy a new couch if you can. Make crafts. Try Zumba even if it makes you feel feel like a flailing muppet in a sea of mermaids. 

Find the holes in your story.

Why is your heart so broken? Maybe the story you were telling yourself was never true. Maybe you weren't as happy as you wanted to believe you were. Maybe now you can finally stop walking on eggshells all the time. 

Find out what you've been overlooking.

Maybe, just maybe, the sweet, deadpan guy you never seriously considered is flirting with you. And maybe he's secretly funny. Maybe you should let him take you to an arcade. Be nice to him, even if you're still trying to quell the banshee inside. He might be just what you need. 

A Girl Can Do What She Wants to Do and That's What I'm Gonna Do

I got my hair cut today. I like to cut my hair in tribute to Joan Jett.

My Joan Jett tributes last exactly one day, because I don't have the three hands patience required to operate a blow dryer + roundbrush. 

I saw Joan Jett play in Pensacola this summer and immediately recognized what I later read in books about her. Joan Jett is considered rebellious not because she's some deviant with an attitude problem. She's just her self... her larger-than-life, unabashed and unapologetic self. She manages to be a sweet, sexy, underdog who radiates joy and even kindness. I love this quote:

"I'm kind of a loner in a lot of ways, but in other ways, I'm very much a rule follower. Rules of civility. Rules that help us all get along. There's a thing called right-of-way, please and thank you. My rebellion is not about authority--well maybe it is a little bit about authority, but it's more about society." 
-- Joan Jett 

It is an act of defiance, sometimes, to just be happy being yourself. I've tried to love some people who couldn't handle all of me. It broke my heart, but there's nothing I can do about it. 

I think that if I ever get to have a daughter, when she hits that inevitable time in high school when she realizes she's too creative and free-thinking and self-aware to blend in with the popular kids, I will sit her down and play "Bad Reputation" and hope she doesn't think I'm just old and out-of-touch. And I'll say, from the bottom of my corny, sweet heart, "I don't give a damn if you think you're strange / you don't have to change."

You go, Joan.