Valentine's Day advice for the single and hurting

Sometimes you have warning, other times, it comes out of the blue

Life has a pattern, good or bad, and you get used to that pattern when all of sudden, POW!

You try to put on a happy face, but all you can manage is indifference

Grief is a process.
You can't just turn it off, and people tend to forget this.
Just as it's bad to wallow in grief, it's just as bad not to face it.
Is it the loss of the person that's causing your grief or the loss of someone there with you? Think hard on this one, it took me near two years to come up with an answer

So you put on a fake face and head out into the world

You know the one. You try to smile but it comes out more like you're receiving a jalapeno enema. Your friends WILL see that you're making an effort, though. The people that care for you will keep caring for you, and sometimes just being around them can help

Social interactions can feel awkward, but can be good for healing

Keep to you comfort level, but be open to challenging those levels.
Someone I met while going through the divorce to my first wife had regular hot tub parties that were clothing optional.
That first time you go "What the hell, why not!" is scary, but it can be pretty freeing to break out of your old boundaries

You WILL relapse.

It will hit you.
In the middle of the night you'll roll over and no one is there.
You come home from work and there's no hug and kiss.
You make enough food for two and realize that you now have an extra serving.

Those who care will help carry you

Like I said before, sometimes just being around someone helps.
Cry on a shoulder, kill some zombies, shoot some pool, watch a movie, go star gazing, give a hobo a roast chicken, whatever will help.

But you'll push through it

No two people react the exact same way, no two people take the same amount of time to heal.
In the end, no matter how much help you have, you need to WANT to push past your grief.

It DOES get better

When is different for everybody. You may stumble, you may fall, you may make the drunken 3 AM texts that nobody talks about later, but it really does get better.

And in the end, you need to be comfortable in your own skin

I put this up every few years with the hopes that t can do some good. Personal background: After my ex wife left me, I felt that my word had fallen apart, and spent years wallowing in guilt, grief and loneliness.
I went through several rebounds in my time, and the last one shocked me out of my habits. I was making the same mistakes, seeing the same old hurt, rebounding left and right.
It was when I saw what my friends were telling me, when I pulled out of my grief and stopped trying to force things that I met my current (And last!) wife, now of 11 years.

Cat puppy tax