Day 2

The only thing that potentially gets hit harder than your heart after a breakup may very well be your wallet. I'm down to the last few days of this month, and yeah, ok, maybe I really only have enough for rent left in my bank account but damnit, I need retail therapy right now! Even after thrifting (J. Brand Jeans for $8!) and birthday present exchanging this week (cute earrings returned for smoking hot stilettos!), I still didn't feel satisfied. I needed to finish filling whatever void was only half full, even if it put me in the red and I had to eat popcorn and Cheerios for two weeks straight.

A quick backtrack after lunch today landed me at one of my favorite boutiques in Sunset Plaza, and wouldn't you know it, they were having a sale. (Ok, I really went there to see my friend who runs the place. They have a way of generally making me feel better, and in all honesty, I was already looking pretty good since I had a lunch meeting on that side of town earlier; why waste my work on one encounter?) Let this be a lesson to call in advance- a six-mile detour could've been avoided had I known that they wouldn't be there. I did however find a different friend in the form of a gorgeous ruffly black silk sleeveless blouse. On sale for $25 bucks. My new outfit and therapy was beginning to feel complete.

I suppose you could call that blouse my mourning shirt being the fabric and color it is, and I guess I might agree since the loss of a love can feel equally as painful as the death of a friend. However, even though I may seem in mourning and might just decide to wear it for one week straight, it wont be because I'm sorrowful; no, it'll be because I feel smoking hot in it. For me, the quickest way to get over feeling sad is by feeling better about yourself. Yes, I know thinking about all of your good qualities can be hard when you've been thinking about what you've done wrong. But if you can't start from the inside, it's often easier starting outside instead. You can call it superficial if you'd like, but really all it is is reverse psychology: you look better, and by default you feel better. I've yet to meet a single person who has trouble agreeing with that under such circumstances, I don't care how "real" they claim to be. You look better, you feel better. End of story.

"But I'm too fat to look better." Eat less, go to the gym. I know you need your ice cream right now, so put it in a small bowl- don't dig from the carton until you scrape cardboard and wonder where it all went. If you hate working out, you're not alone. I personally hate the gym. But you know what else is a good workout? Dancing. If you don't like to dance it's because you've never really tried it or have never had more than two shots of tequila. I'm not condoning drowning your sorrows in alcohol here ladies, I'm just saying your friends said they'd drop everything and hang out with you right now so you have a free pass: drag them to a club, let them buy you a cocktail if it helps, and tear up that dance floor. You might even catch the eye of that cute guy in the corner- I know you're not looking for romance quite yet, but even lunch or coffee might help you remember that you've still got it.

"But I don't feel like that kind of maintenance." GET OVER IT. Make-up takes less than 10 minutes. If you can apply chapstick you can apply lipstick, and if you can put in contacts you can certainly put on mascara. If you still don't know how, the nice ladies at the Sephora counter will do it for you and show you step by step. There is no excuse. When I met my current roommate, she was the biggest anti-makeup person I knew; upon asking her why, she simply said, "I don't want people thinking I'm something I'm not." It took me months if not over a year to convince her that makeup was not about lying to the people around you, but instead enhancing yourself for yourself. It goes straight back to my first point: you look better, you feel better. And by no means does this mean you have to cake foundation and eyeshadow on like a burlesque dancer. You just have to figure out what suits you and what enhances your features and stick with it. People will notice something is different, but they never have to know what.

"All the articles say I should date but I don't feel like dating." Of course you don't! Why on earth would you let anyone make you date right now? However, this does not mean that you're allowed to hole up in your living room for six months eating Doritos and watching Gossip Girl reruns. You need to get out, and if not on dates, somewhere with someone. (Grocery and gas runs do not count!) Try dinner with friends, movie night at the girls', beers and football with the guys, or even those party invites that you've been ignoring since you gained a boyfriend and lost your social life two years ago. Never had a social life to begin with? Make one up. Even if you only have one friend, I'm sure they will be there for you during this time and will be ready to do whatever you want to do.

"But I don't like hanging out with the girls/I don't have any girl friends." I don't either/I have very few (three local ones to be exact.) If you're one of those girls that's friends with 90% guys like I am, look at this as a time to reconnect with them if you've lost touch. Sometimes just having another guy tell you your ex is a bastard and you can do better is more fulfilling than one of the girls telling you that anyway. And besides, nothing can quite replace a strong muscular shoulder to cry on.

Maybe my glass is just always more than half full, but in closing for the night you really only have two options here: you can either look at your life post-breakup from a sad-woe-is-me perspective, or you can look at it as a chance to better yourself. And really, doesn't the second one sound more appealing anyway? Now to figure out where to wear my new outfit to...