Dear Alaila

"Dear Alaila


I have just recently got out of a 4 year relationship and I don't know what to do!
Please help.

Best wishes

Completely Made up Person from Lala Land"

Okay.. don't panic.
Your are going to go through the 5 stages of being alone, ready?

1- You'll cry your eyes out.
It doesn't matter if you ended it or the other person did. It doesn't matter if it was a destructive relationship or the love of your life. You will cry.
You will mourn the loss of being with someone, the loss of of being part of something greater than yourself, of having someone to share your meals with and to fill the house with some sort of background noise... even if it was only just that they did.
Embrace it.
Don't fight it. Don't think crying it's a sign of weakness and you're above it.
Set a time for it. Plan an evening of tissues and depressing music.
And that's it. No more. You may feel sad, you may even get teary... but you will not indulge in a pity party any longer than that one night. You are moving on!

2- You will think you are worthless.
If the person didn't fight for you it was because you weren't worth fighting for.
If the person treated you badly it's because you deserved it.
If you were not loved it's because you are unlovable and will never find happiness again.
Stop!
Stop it right now.
If you feel you are worthless do something of value. Help someone. Clean your house. Organize your computer. Call a friend.

3- You will feel that you are ugly/uninteresting/boring.
You are right. With puffy red eyes and runny nose you are not the most attractive person in the world. Wash your face. Smile. Problem solved.
If all you can talk about is your broken relationship you are not that interesting... read a book, read the paper, do a crazy Google search and share your opinions about it. Problem solved.
If you just complaint about your life you are indeed boring. I'm not telling you to hide your pain.. but at least mix it up a bit. We all know great tragedies always have a comic side to them.
Never heard the saying: " it's so sad  it's funny?".

4- You will wonder if you did the right thing or if you should try to get back into that relationship and work harder.
No!
No!
I'll say it again: no!
Right now you are having the fantasy that the other person is doing this.  It's a nice fantasy but it's not happening. They are probably doing this... or this... or this. They might even be doing this already.
You should do the same. Seriously.


5- You'll want to hide away from humans and live as a crazy cat lady.
If that's your thing.. go for it.
If you feel you might get bored after a while and crave human contact then don't push away all your friends.
Remember that people may suck, but there are a few capable of being quite awesome.


After going to all of these stages you will wake up one day and realize that now you don't know what to do with yourself.
Suddenly it's just you and you are not as grieve-struck as before and you even start thinking about the future.
Congratulations.
You are ready to learn how to be single again.