JUST DO SOMETHING

That stretch of time between having your heart broken and the moment when you feel you can move on can feel like death. I’m not sure what death feels like but it can’t be pleasant. Anyway, it’s just a metaphor to try and capture what is a wholly destructive experience. If being in love is euphoria at its most playful then being dumped is misery in a spiteful tizz. Time drags on, everything reminds you of the other person, and at the most inopportune time your ex-lovers’ face will pop into your head and cause you to tear up. It’s a bloody mess! You find yourself wishing for the most macabre and fanciful things – being run over by a train, your ex-lover knocking on your door with a card that says sorry in one hand and a bumper pack of condoms in the other, your ex-lover being hit by the train, the world exploding in a shower of hot ash (why must you be the only one with rotten luck for Pete’s sake). Do I have any advice for you during this torrid time? Yes, don’t commit suicide. Remember, you fell in love before, you can do it again. That’s right, you randy tiger you – just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go and buy that bumper pack of condoms for yourself. Love isn't a one night stand, it’s a lifetime affair punctuated by difficult stretches of time.

That stretch of time between the last hundred rand in your wallet and payday can seem like an eternity. Metaphor? You betcha. Eternity means forever and even though the time between your last hundred rand and payday is only four days, those four days don’t seem to want to end. And when they do end, time suddenly speeds up to the next four days before payday. As uncanny as it is you always seem to be in those four days, those fucking four days! First you feel you can make it, then you feel like your life is over, then you feel you've got enough for a cup of coffee, then you regret the coffee, and then you realize there’s still three days to go. Again you find yourself wishing for fanciful things – your urine was as good as petrol, someone broke into your house and left a whole bunch of food in the fridge, a sizable sum of money was deposited in your bank account from an unknown benefactor. It never happens. Do I have any advice? No. Life can be a bitch sometimes, that’s it.

That stretch of time between giving someone your number and them actually calling can be excruciating. It’s some sort of suspended expectation thing. No matter how many corners you turn you can’t seem to turn enough. Your mind will churn over scenarios that range from the highly probable to the absolute pinnacle of fantasy. Maybe they’re not calling because they just don’t like you but were too nice to say so. Maybe they’re not calling because they fell into an open manhole. Maybe they have called - in the last few seconds since you last checked your phone. Check your phone again. Nothing. Fuck them. No, wait, they could be in aforementioned manhole. Wait a little longer, they’ll call. Check the phone again. Nothing. Try and pretend it doesn't bother you. It does. Do I have any advice? Yes, go for a run, drink a beer, dance the fandango on a moonbeam, I don’t know, just do something.

Just do something.

Just do something.