You’ve been dumped! You of all people! Who would’ve imagined!

Ok, first: get over yourself, you’re not the first or the last person to get dumped. Second: cut the crap and let’s get to work.

Everything is a form of art,

The art of leaving, the art of getting dumped.

The art of living and dying.

If you put much thought and effort in to it, you’ll figure it all out.

Step #1: The flying method

I think they have a real name for it, but that’s what I like to call it. Names don’t matter. The point is in gaining perspective or seeing the bigger picture or having closure.

You fly out of your body and assess the whole situation. Fly away like a bird and look at all the mess created, in all its beauty and glory. Take it all in, then take it apart, piece by piece, then create your own picture.

Then mess it all up because it won’t make sense anyway.

So just take it all in, remember the things said and done,

Feel it…overly!

Don’t suppress anything…it’s a festival, a circus and you are the performer and the audience.

Step #2: Tears

Cry! A lot!

Curl in a ball

Lay down on the floor

Pull your hair out if you need to

Cry your eyes out

Promise yourself not to cry for him/her ever again, then cry some more!

As I said before, feel it…overly.

To turn your emotions off or to suppress your feelings is a big fat mistake that will bite you in the ass when you least expect it.

That goes for guys too by the way!

Whenever you feel like crying…let it happen.

Ok! Done. You watched the mess that happened and you cried, now what!?

Step #3: Face it and hide

By now its most likely that people heard you got dumped or that the relationship is over. So you’re gonna have that conversation over and over and over…and over again.

What happened? But why? You guys were great together.

Well sometimes people don’t realise when to back off or shut the fuck up. So face it. Tell them what happened. Even if it doesn’t make any sense to you. Come up with lies or make up stories. Tell it as it is! Just get this part over with as fast as you can…then go home.

Feel horrible about everything you said and exhausted from keeping that poker face for too long.

Oh! That reminds me, don’t ever cry in front of anyone! ever! When the urge to cry comes, stop talking, take a deep breath and walk away or run or whatever you need to do. Just don’t cry in front of anybody!

Anyways, after the whole face off battle, feel horrible like I said, now wish you never opened your mouth. Dude! Seriously! Why did you talk to those people!

Now the second part of this step…hide.

Crawl under the bed.

Make room in your closet and sit inside.

Don’t leave the house.

Sit inside your biggest suitcase.

Hide from the world. It will make you feel better like a little kid who hides from the monsters under his blanket.

This step like all the previous ones shall drag on for as long as you need it to, just not too long. Careful now! We don’t need anxiety issues.

Step#4: Bad habits festival

Do you feel empty?

Eat. Anything and everything. Including the butter and garlic left in the fridge. Anything you can get your hands on.. just stuff your face with food, even if its food you normally hate.. eat it!

Do you feel disgusted?

Puke. Then don’t eat anything for as long as you need.

Have some cold milk, it’ll settle your stomach.

Do you feel a hole burning in your chest?

Smoke! Have a pack of cigarettes a day, or two or whatever. If you’re a non smoker it’ll burn your eyes, your nose, your fingers, your throat and even that burning flame deep down, it will burn it some more and you’ll have a reason for why it burns inside.

In case you are already a smoker. Then quit smoking and drink lots of cold icey water. The burning sensation will fade away…oh and ice cream!

Does it hurt?

Take some pain killers! Nothing serious though, an Advil will do it for you. Have one per day, the pain that you can not pinpoint its origin will go away. For now!

Are you consumed?

Sleep! A lot!

Days and nights. Sleep all day and wake up all night, or sleep all night and then some during the day. Don’t leave your bed.

Are you tired of sleeping?

Wake up. Drink coffee! Try new brands of coffee. Discover new ways to make your coffee. Obsess over your god damn coffee. Drink it till you twitch and stay awake till you drop.

Step # 5: Get busy!

Read. then read some more. Read more books till your eyes can’t differentiate the letters. Read different kinds of books till you find what grabs you by the shirt and sucks you in.

Watch all the movies you always wanted to. Go on a series binge and watch all the seasons. Watch tv, a lot. Anything you can, just watch it.

Remember the stuff you used to love doing as a kid but grew out of it? Well, rehash it and try it now, you’ll develop a new liking to it.

Remember the stuff you tried once, hated it and swore never to try it again? Well, never say never babe. Try it again, now you’ll see everything differently.

Find new hobbies. Try Pinterest, it got loads of ideas to the point you can just get lost collecting ideas than doing them. It got a shitless load of DIY ideas, doodling, scrapbooking, gardening or needle artwork.

You’ll find a certain joy in creating something from scratch. Once you see those beatiful leaves coming out from a plant you cared for from nothing, or that picture that started forming up after few stitches by a needle, or that joy radiating from several strokes of your pen or paintbrush. Your heart will flutter to that scene.

Get a cat or a dog, whichever you prefer. They will need your love and attention. They will need your help and they will help you in return. They will be the reason you get off the bed, cause they need to feed or have a walk or play. They will make you realize that you still got something to give. You still can love them and be kind to them and care for them.

Write! Even if you can’t.

Just write something down every week. Its not that hard.

Write angry letters and actually send them.

Write angry poems and post them on the internet. Or just write and keep it to yourself. Just write what you feel.

What you wanted to say but never got the chance.

What you should’ve said but your brain froze at the time.

Write what you feel, what you think.

Write what you want. Make lists .

Just hold an actual pen and an actual paper and write something down. Write your name if that’s all you can its okay too.

Step#6: Success

Honor yourself.

Appreciate the little things you get done.

After days of crying, hiding and lying around, its good to get off the bed and feed the cat, or clean the house, or take a shower, or cook yourself something nice.

Be kind to yourself

Forgive your yesterday’s mistakes.

All you need to know about this form of art is that in the end, you will be fine!

There are many more steps that I can’t even talk about. Feel free to mix the sequence of the previous steps. They are nothing proven scientifically to work. They are just there to help, I wanted to say its normal to go through all that.

You will go through the self destruction phase and the self inflecting pain phase and the fuck everything phase.

You will welcome the numbness with arms wide open and you will get punched in the stomach with sudden flashbacks out of nowhere for no particular reason.

But you will be fine!

I am sorry I didn’t say that it will all go away, or that time will heal you or the best is yet to come or the sun will rise. Too much cliché for me.

All I am saying is, you will freeze in time, you will get stuck on an unanswered question for a long time. You will miss a lot of things because you just can’t be there or see those people or socialize, and that’s okay…you will be fine!

You are doing the best you can do. You are alive and that is where all your effort must go. Take it one day at a time…hell, take it one hour at a time if that’s what you need.

Time will pass, and the memories will stay with you for a long while. The pain will subside to a dark corner in you heart. You will function again. You are normal.

You will be fine!

Sometimes “fine” is just another synonym for “alive”.

And. That’s. Okay.

 

—

Passant A. AbdelAal is an Egyptian with A severe addiction for reading novels and a passion for poetry, who writes bits and pieces of poetry and musings.