Day Six: Yes, the Cookie Monster had blue fur . . .

Yesterday was a bad day. A very bad day. So, I did what any sane woman would do in this situation—poured enormous amounts of alcohol over my suffering.

No, I did not.

Instead, I did something completely different—I bought cookies and cinnamon rolls for the neighborhood.

Not the whole neighborhood, mind you. Just the parts of it that I’m beginning to know. First, there’s the neighbor who mowed my lawn for me. I’d promised him cookies in return, and I planned to deliver. So, instead of wallowing in my misery on the couch watching Julia Roberts run off in a Fed Ex truck rather than marry Richard Gere (Wtf? It’s Richard Gere?!), I got dressed and went to the snobby Kroger. The snobby Kroger is the one in Beechwold that thinks it’s an upscale version of a mega Walmart. It has food, of course, a really good deli, a very nice health food section, a kitchen/housewares area that’s fairly impressive, plus a Starbucks, a book department, and a seating area for reading (because we all know how much we like to hang out at Kroger and read/sip coffee/surf the Internet).

Then, you get to the other side of the store (it’s like doing your grocery shopping in a mall), and you find yourself suddenly inching past the border lands of toothpaste and shampoo into art, furniture, bedding, bathware, lamps, and—what the bloody hell?—a diamond seller? Fred Meyers Jewelers to be precise. I mean, why wouldn’t I want to buy fine jewelry at the same place where I get my laundry soap and cold-cuts? (“Honey, we’ll stop at Kroger and pick up some eggs, and then get you those sapphire earrings you’ve been wanting . . .”)

Anyway, I tell you this only so that you will be aware that since I was going to be too lazy to actually bake the cookies for the neighbors (I mean, come on . . . it’s a strain just to bathe myself and comb my hair), I was at least going to get them something decent.

Don’t think for a moment that I didn’t realize that I was channeling my nature to want to give. Normally, I would find it nearly impossible to walk into a grocery store without coming out of it loaded up with all of my no-longer-significant-other’s favorites—every single bit of it stuff I couldn’t eat, but still! I liked doing it. Now, suddenly I find myself in the grocery store buying four different kinds of cookies, plus miniature cinnamon rolls. Classic transference. I’m contemplating miniature raspberry cakes as well before deciding that this might be just a tad over the top. I also buy a nice set of heavy paper serving platters, and decent Glad Wrap to cover it (presentation is key), and then I wander around the store for another thirty minutes because it takes about that long just to find where the hell they keep the Advil. (By the diamonds, of course.)

When I got home, the sun was already setting. I set out plates and got to work. I had more cookies than necessary. No surprise there. I poked my head out the back door to address my other neighbor, who was grilling on his smoker. “Want some cookies?” I asked.

I think he was startled. But, hey. Who’s gonna turn down cookies?

I gave him the leftovers, then carried a plate over to my neighbor across the street—visited for a while, cuddled with her very affectionate dog (human and canine contact = good!)—and then distributed the remaining cookies to my lawn-mowing neighbor.

There.

That carried me through several hours. Now what?

Now it’s time to put myself in Relationship Revisionist Recovery. (I can’t take credit for this term. You have authors Greg Behrendt and Amiira Ruotola to thank for that.) Relationship Revisionism is where you look back over your relationship wearing six pairs of rose-colored glasses. All of a sudden, you’ve forgotten all of the bad parts. You’re thinking about how it was in the beginning, and not how it was near the end—you know, you’ve forgotten all those things that totally and completely sucked or that made you want to pluck out your own eyeball (or his) with a spork.

What does this recovery involve, you ask? (Aside from every single one of your friends and family members telling you that it sucked and “You’re better off and remember that time he fill-in-the-blank or that other time when you complained about fill-in-the-blank, and all that other fill-in-the-blank stuff you hated and that made you cry and feel incredibly sad and lonely and that tortured us because we were the ones who had to listen to you complain and/or cry?”) Yeah, well, aside from that, I made a list. I made two lists. What I hated, and what I loved. I’d made lists before, mind you, while in the actual relationship. But I’d always managed to skew them in favor of sticking it out. Because. Duh. That’s what you do when you’re in love.

This time, I urged myself to be nitpicky. Every little thing I didn’t like. Some were small—things that you can (and probably should) absolutely get over. They are not dealbreakers. But others were HUGE. Monumental, absolute and all-kinds-of-ridiculous dealbreakers, and . . . ahem . . . that list was rather long.

The list that detailed the things I loved? Surprisingly short this time; however, no less potent for its brevity. To quote Greg Behrendt again, “It doesn’t matter how much mayonnaise you add—you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.” But dammit, I was still going to try. It’s amazing how Relationship Revisionism works that way. You can have three pages full of the bad, but those three paragraphs of good? Well, I mean, they were really, really good, right!? You’ll never find anyone who can do those three things as good as He could.

You know what should go at the top of every list that includes the subject heading, “What is wrong with this picture?” Something like, “He broke up with me,” OR, “I broke up with him” (however it happened). There was a reason. No fair calling it a case of temporary insanity if you’ve been considering the notion for any length of time. Say . . . six months. I think that pretty well counts as premeditated.

It still sucks. Making lists sucks.

I bet he’s not making any lists.