10 Things To Do After the Breakup: An Exclusive Guest Post From Hazel Hayes, Author of Out of Love — Our Monthly Fiction Pick for October

My novel, Out of Love, begins with a breakup; after five years together, the narrator’s boyfriend decides to leave her one night, seemingly out of the blue, and she’s left wondering where it all went wrong, if they were ever really happy, and whether it was worth it. Sound familiar?
This is what we do when relationships end; we wallow, we dwell, we pick the past apart, desperately searching for some clue that will make it all make sense. It’s an unavoidable step in the grieving process, a helpful, necessary step, but it’s a step in the wrong direction. Eventually we need to stop wading through the wreckage and start moving forward on a path to healing. Here are ten tips that will hopefully help you do just that.
 
1. Cry. A nice easy one to start us off. Cry. A lot. Just go ahead and let it all out.
2. Don’t do anything drastic! Your first instinct, once the initial shock and tears subside, will be to do something absolutely wild. Whether that’s cutting your hair off, calling your ex to scream down the phone at them, posting embarrassing photos of them online, jumping into bed with a total stranger . . . Resist! I promise, you won’t regret not doing those things.
3. Be kind to yourself. If you were physically injured, you would rest up and take care of yourself. This is no different. You’ve been hurt, and you need time to get better. So give yourself a break. Take some time off. Eat what you want. Watch whatever terrible films you want. Take a bubble bath. Eat ice cream. Become a cliché. Embrace the cliché.
4. Let other people be kind to you, too! If a friend called you at four a.m. needing to talk, you’d be there. If they needed some company, you’d be there. You’d make them tea and watch them cry and listen to them for hours. You would do that for a friend. You know you would. So let them do it for you.
5. Redecorate. If you’re still living in the home you shared, or if you’ve moved into a new place, this is your space now. Make it cozy, comfortable, and safe. Fill it with things you love. Surround yourself with reminders of who you are without your ex—your achievements, your hobbies, your dreams. (Option to cover every wall with photos of friends and family.)
6. Stalk your ex on social media. You should definitely look at all your ex’s new posts, read all the crappy things they’re saying about you, see all the fun they’re having without you, and speculate as to who they might be dating now. That will make you feel much better.
7. Obviously don’t do that.
8. Write things down.
You don’t have to write a whole book about it (though I would highly recommend it) but keeping a record of your thoughts and feelings can be incredibly cathartic. It can also be hard to see the good when you’re grieving, so jotting down any little things you’re grateful for helps highlight them to you. Then, when you’re feeling low, you can look back on the good stuff. And when your entries become more and more positive (which they will!) you can see all the progress you’ve made.
9. Feel your feelings. You might feel sad, angry, afraid, brokenhearted, guilty, nostalgic, confused, betrayed, relieved, lost, hopeless, hateful, and still a little bit in love. You might even feel all this at the same time. And that’s okay. Healing is not linear. And grief is not actually five stages that go by in chronological order. It’s messy and it’s ugly and it’s hard as hell. Like my narrator says, “There’s no going around it. Or under or over it. You’ve got to go through it.”
10. Learn from the greats.
Gather all the advice you can from veteran heartbreakees like myself. The narrator’s favorites are Joan Didion and Nora Ephron, but there are endless books and films and albums from people who’ve survived a broken heart. Laugh with them. Cry with them. And remember, they made it out the other side and so will you!