heatwaves, headaches, and preventative heatbreaks
some lessons from A Week.
Hi my angels, my beautiful friends, no one in particular, everyone in particular, etc. etc.
It is 5:45 on a Friday morning. I am coming off of an evening of heatstroke, and I can confirm that the heat will make you go crazy. I thought it was a great idea to take a 3 hour walk from noon - 4 pm, where it was pure, blistering sun in 40 degree heat. No water bottle, just me - thinking if I stayed in the shade, I would be fine.
Well, I guess I was not fine - and my first clue should have been when I burst out crying into my lemon granita. And I don’t mean shedding a few tears, it was like - full on sobbing. And then I had a moment where I debated on getting another tattoo (all of this at 3 pm on a Thursday). Thankfully I decided not to, because god only knows what I would have thought would have been cute when I was dehydrated and delusional.
Anyways, along with a migraine, the sobbing and delusion went on for the entirety of my evening. But, the good news is that I woke up with only the tiniest post-crying headache and a glow because I had no choice but to chug 3 L of water before I (thankfully) tired myself out of crying I guess, and passed out at 11.
I had a weird week. I made a to-do list at the beginning and the first thing on my to-do list was “1. GET OVER ____”. I will call him ____ because we are not in the business of outing anyone on Every Little Thing, only in the business of trying to make as many people as we can into art and content. I also have a confession to make. I will religiously read my newsletter stats and this newsletter does so well that it scares me to know how many people now know what is going on in my mind / heart / life on any given afternoon.
Anyways, I have forgotten how it feels like to attempt to get over someone in so long. I guess because I forgot what it feels like to actually like someone, and then I was reminded, and then I realized maybe I manifested this a few months ago when I made a newsletter declaration that I was going to be open to love because a combination of astrologers and psychics told me to.
So, I did what I thought would help me get over him by the end of the week (I gave myself a timeline lol). I bought new bedding, took myself out for pasta, stayed away from red wine, stayed away from all wine actually, changed my phone background (the biggest refresh), watched Love & Gelato, cried a lot because of Heatstroke (??? maybe it wasn’t just heatstroke IDK ???), wrote to you, went to new places, attempted to meditate more, etc etc.
Well, that was my Sunday evening goal, and it is now Friday morning. It is a new month with a new moon. And I am, surprisingly, feeling a bit better? And not in the sense of - Emily, you reached your goal of fully getting over ____ in 5 days flat, but in the sense of - finding peace within the answers we have to give to ourselves.
I’m telling you, it’s always the ones that you least expect, that always end up doing a number on you. Maybe the first phase of getting over someone is accepting the fact that you need to get over them. And sometimes that takes a few minor meltdowns in a park, in a piazza, into your caffè freddo, into your lemon granita (I think I might have cried all over Rome this week) to wake up on a Friday morning, and feel the tiniest bit lighter and more clear than you did at the start of the week.
Can I tell you something? The best part is that he will never know that he was the subject of my piazza meltdowns, and I don’t think he would even guess that I had garnered enough feelings for him to make getting over him my number one priority of the week. Sometimes, the less someone knows about you, the better.
Ok - update - it’s now noon and I’ve discovered a new cafe. So I’m sitting outside in the shady breeze with my mortadella on focaccia and an espresso on the way. Black slip dress and green sandals because we’re constantly a pheonix rising from the ashes. Ultraviolence is still our soundtrack, but anyways.
I think one of things that people love the most about Italy and Italians is their ability to live in this romanticized moment. It’s the strolls and the long lunches and aperitivo and the 3 hour dinners, and of course - how each meal and drink literally tastes a work of art. It would be a sin to live anywhere else but In The Moment.
I’d also attribute this to Italy being a Gemini, like yours truly. We want to have a good time in the moment, and forget about the consequences of tomorrow. Are there even consequences if we’re living in the moment? I’ve also come to realize that passion is born by living in the moment.
Did I fall for someone that I shouldn’t have fallen for because I was living in a moment where everything else stopped existing? Yes.
And this is just me being honest, because I believe it is a sin to write and create art and not tell the honest truth.
So, as I am drinking my second espresso and recovering from my heatstroke meltdown, I am writing a list of things that my hallucinations and delirious state of the week showed me:
1. Grief shows up unwelcomed and when we least expect it, but also when we need it the most. Who do we turn to when we don’t have the answers? Who isn’t there to tell us what we want to hear? Sometimes grief is like a hug, it reminds us of what we’ve lost, and then we can talk to ourselves like the little girl we secretly still are.
2. Thinking about the future isn’t the worst thing. There are some situations that are just not meant to end well. And no matter how promising the moment looks, the dust will eventually settle and sometimes the truth will never be as beautiful as it was promised to be in the moment.
3. The truth will set us free. He will never know how I felt, but you will know. And I’m hoping by writing this, I will start to become free of the ideas and mirages and illusions that have haunted me for the past little while.
This was a journal entry. And sometimes I find it easier to hide behind the poetic newsletters because I am not outright saying anything, rather I am hiding behind beautifully crafted sentences and words that tell the stories of things I only know.
Anyways, I love you. I have learned my lesson of drinking water before going out for a 4 hour walk in 40 degree weather. And I’ve also learned that sometimes we need the truth to break our own hearts a bit, in order to save ourselves from even more of a catastrophic heart break.
What a fun note to end on!
I love you (again). I think I’m going to go buy peaches and burrata.
Ciao my friend,
Emily