Factory Girl Episode 18: How to Survive a Brutal Breakup; Factory - TopicsExpress

Factory Girl Episode 18: How to Survive a Brutal Breakup; Factory Girl Style! A breakup can really throw a person off kilter. When you’re used to having a partner to help you combat this cruel, cold world, it’s massively devastating to suddenly wake up vulnerable and alone. Clenching your jaw and clutching your pillow only serves as a brutal reminder of how alone and pathetic your life has become. You feel as if you’re a raw open wound that anything can creep into and infect. You sob and sing (simultaneously) in your car, whilst blasting high-school music, you heavily drink on an empty stomach, you numb-out, wake up in stranger’s beds, have a VERY short-fuse and insist on rocking your most ratchet outfits to social events (you might even find yourself closing down Smoking Joe’s seven nights per week, mascara streaming down your face and into your whiskey). I know all of this from my loaded (and quite questionable) past. Factory Girl is a highly emotional, dramatic being (shocker!) who has LIVED (I should have an honorary master’s degree in living, really). In my 27 years, I’ve experienced a (large) handful of passionate relationships that have culminated in fiery breakups (it’s always highs and lows over here — we don’t understand the whole “balanced” business). Through my trials and tribulations, I’ve learned a very important lesson that I will be selfless enough to share with the masses (at no charge, because despite popular opinion, I’m super kind): When you’re in a breakup, you’re actually in a very powerful place. Your world needs to come crashing down into a million shards of glass in order for you to pick up the pieces and rebuild your life the way you want it, as an individual. Now is the time to do whatever you want. One of the glorious parts of being in extreme pain is the case of the “eff its” that come with it. Your world is broken, so who cares what anyone else thinks? Now is the time to cut your hair, speak your mind, take an improv class, take a career risk, get a tattoo, skinny dip, tell off someone you don’t care for, have a stiff drink and truly think for yourself. And that’s a powerful place to be. So screw relationships; you’re much more interesting (and chic) as a wild individual than an uptight Stepford wife who has to go home at 10 p.m.