How To Be Sad: A Short Guide

• Stay up until 3 a.m., while the rest of the world sleeps.
• Listen to sad songs on repeat.
• Pick fights with people who love you.
• Stop going out.
• Don't call friends.

• No more eye contact. 
• Say mean things about yourself often.
• Sigh. All the time.
• Stop believing in things you find important.
• Believe no one understands you.
• Eat bad food that makes you feel worse.
• Stay in bed or on the couch.
• Chase people away, then hate them because they left.

• Love less, worry more.
• Live this way for a while. A very long while. Too long, actually.
• Catch a glimpse of yourself in someone else. Or maybe a mirror. Or maybe both.
• Realize you don't like what you see.

• Take a piece of pink paper and scribble a list on How To Be Sad.
• Stop doing those things.
• Keep the list in your pocket or bag for months.
• Refer to it often.
• Then not so much.

• Tuck the paper away in a drawer.
• Forget about it for years.
• Find it when doing spring cleaning.
• Smooth the wrinkled edges.
• Remember your sadness, but from a different perspective.
• Honor that time in your life.

• Rip the paper into tiny little pieces.
• Throw the list into the recycling bin.
• You know how to be sad.
• But you're figuring out how to be happy.

illustration: Zakhar Krylov

Thrift/sadness

This post is part of a Blogging A To Z series where I write a new, personal story almost every day (except Sundays). The theme is the hidden messages: the language of flowers.