Day Seven: Don’t you dare quote Bobby McFerrin

I woke up missing him. Terribly. I woke up staring at the corner garden in my living room, the sun struggling to stream in past the slats of the venation blinds, and as usual, I failed to experience even one sliver of a hint of a feeling of lightness or gratitude for being awake.

This is torture, I think. I know I will move past it. But in the beginning, it’s torture. Plus, it’s hard not to torture others with your torture. My best friend and I had been texting back and forth the night before, and there was no rosebush pep talk this time. “Relax,” he wrote. “Jeesus . . . just be happy.”

I wanted to write back, “Fuck you, asshole!” But, I didn’t. That’s not a very nice thing to say to a friend, but come on. It’s Day 7. That’s what you say to someone who’s on Day 67. “Remind me,” I texted back, “to be surly and pragmatic when you’re upset about some girl who’s not returning your phone calls.” After all, this relationship had been kind of serious, whereas he’ll text me in crisis mode when the barmaid doesn’t want to marry him after one night of spooning.

“Just pull through,” he wrote. “Don’t wallow. Be happy.”

“For the love you bear me,” I typed back, “and all that is sacred in the heavens, please. stop. saying. that.”

I get it. No one wants to see me suffering in this way. (Although really, my suffering could be worse when you consider the fact that I work to overcome it by handing out cookies.) But there’s a chemical component here. My body is actually going through a withdrawal of sorts. That soupy blend of dopamine, serotonin, neuroepeniphrine, adrenaline, and phenylethylamine that is associated with falling in and out of love is waning, then absent, and what does it all mean? It means, I might suddenly become a bit of a bummer.

In his favor, he did at least respond with a joke:

What did the elephant say to the naked man?

How do you breathe out of something so small?

Later that day, I was reminded again of why social networking during this time is a bad idea. You get to experience the inevitable removal of yourself from your NLS/O’s relationship status. This happened to be that day for me. How did I know? you ask. (Since it should be cardinal rule number one never to go to their Facebook page). Well, because something messed up in the transition on his end, and it ended up sending me a notification of the fact.

Great. Thank you, Facebook.

You have Notifications!

You know that dude who had you listed as his relationship partner? He just de-listed you. Have a nice day.

Don’t wallow, right? Just be happy.

Only, it felt like someone had sort of mucked about in my body so that all of my organs were now on the outside—right before shoving me into a cactus.

I won’t even bother speculating how the experience was for him. (Okay, I will. There was a twinge. Then he went and did something else.)

For me, that something else (after a lot of tears) was a grueling walk to torture myself.

Number one on the list of things to do to feel better? Exercise. Of course. Because sitting on the couch eating non-stop and watching sappy love movies is probably just going to end up making you feel like a fat lump of a loser. (Unless that movie is Love, Actually, which is still good even when you’re depressed.) But I hadn’t planned on exercising. My plan was to sit outside of my favorite café and read. But while I was sitting there, watching all of the students stride past me, I realized that I absolutely did not want to sit there. I wanted to walk to Indonesia.

Since that was unrealistic, I settled for “generally south.” Believe me. This was no slow walk. By the time I circled back, I felt like throwing up a lung.

Good. I was worried about how things might go if my lung suddenly ejected out onto the sidewalk—which meant I wasn’t thinking about Him.