Me: How are you?

Ms. K: Oh, you know.  Just had a good uglycry after finding my last photo of my grandmother.  Good times.  How are you?

Me: Oh I did my uglycry last night and Jow got home and I ran to the bathroom and washed my face and pretended everything was fine.  Like normal peoples do.

Ms. K:  EXACTLY.  I'm hiding fully clothed in my shower.  Like an adult.

Me: IF I WANTED TO PROCESS GRIEF LIKE A NORMAL, I'D TELL YOU, HUSBAND!

Ms. K: NO NOTHING.  I AM FINE.  EVERYTHING IS GREAT.  SAY.  DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING WITH SUGAR IN IT?  HOW ABOUT ALCOHOL?

Me: Let's have a frank discussion about your meds and what they could be doing for me.

Ms. K: Advent.  40 days and 40 nights of PMS, that's what it is, right?

Me: Thanks a lot, Jesus.

Ms. K: I want a bottle-a-night wine advent calendar.  That should exist.  Advent calendars full of antidepressants and painkillers.

Me: And chocolate truffles!  Also, it's literally the darkest part of the year.  Good planning everyone!  Happy f**king Solstice!

Ms. K: Exactly.

Me: Have you seen Melancholia?

Ms. K: In the theater yo!

Me: Justin is a woman for all seasons.  F**k you and your wine and your nice way to die.  Wedding?  I'ma burn this place down to the ground.  P.S. Your food tastes like ashes.  Yesterday I texted Jared, Do you have a secret estate?  A secret depression estate?  Because . . .if you do, now would be a fantastic time to tell me.  I would like the opportunity to cry about food tasting like ashes and refusing baths like an angry cat in a bigger setting.  It just adds something, I think.

Ms. K:  Yes, girl.  All day, ev'ry day.

***

So, you're supposed to be completely happy and cheerful but your friends are dying of colon cancer requiring calls to exbfs who hate you and od'ing on aspirin and then calling you for some personal sharing/quality hospital time (. . . .just me?) in addition to your pre-existing sads about all of your dead.  It's dark.  You're broke.  You are fighting with everyone dumb enough to try to talk to you.  You have a moment, a glimmer of hope in your day and then it summarily crushed by the unrelenting depression everyone else in your life is going through.

Welcome to the real Hunger Games, charmers.  Strap in.

How to Survive Your Holidaze Apocolypse:

1. Update your Netflix/Spotify queues.  It makes you feel like you are doing something while doing nothing.
2. Take 20 minute walks.  You can bitch the entire time to your unlucky companion or out loud.  Why not you?
3. Do a spiritual practice that is repetitive like japa or a rosary.
4. Draw boundaries.  If you start screaming in your head when someone is talking to you, tell them, hey friend.  I'm holding on by a very thin thread right now and I can't process your break up for the hundredth time.  We can however talk about something else!  12th century politics in France FTW!
5. Cry.  Lock yourself in a closet or the bathroom and just let it out.  Listen to a song that brings it on if you need to, but get it out.
6. Fix something small in your life.  Start flossing.  Change your sheets.  Get an oil change.  Something.

Three more days and then the days get longer.  Three more months before we actually see/feel it.  We can do this. 

I love you, Charmers.  Be gentle with yourselves.