Are you fighting off the crushing weight of an existential void created when your ex-girlfriend left you last night without a second thought? How could Rachel do that? You were together for seven years. Does none of that matter to her? Fighting the creeping dread of your new, lonely life won’t be easy, but there’s a simple starting point for any recently single sad sack.
Completely removing everything that reminds you of Rachel will ensure that you’ll never think about her again. Since you spent so much time together in your bedroom, that’s the best place to start. These are five simple steps anyone can take to create a vibrant look for an old, tired space—and your space is so tired.
Reuse an Art Deco Trash Can
A common bedroom reno tip is to take a fancy trash can—like that gaudy, twisting, fuchsia disaster that Rachel bought—and flip it upside-down. Looking at the same things from a new angle brings revelation and relief. You can turn misfortune into opportunity by using that flipped trashcan as a new bedside table!
It’s almost like Rachel never left. A part of her is still here in the room, secreting a dull, anesthetic fugue of lingering memories. She must remember all those good times too. She’ll be back—at least for her trash can.
Get Some New Curtains
How could she take do this to you? Her light was the only thing you had and now it’s gone. It packed up its overnight bag and left. Probably to go stay with that ripped coworker Dave, or Janice. JANICE: always filling Rachel’s head with lies.
“Why hasn’t he proposed yet?” That’s none of your business, JANICE.
Blackout curtains will keep out all the annoying light that Rachel let it in. Some companies make blackout curtains with little holes in them, so they look like a cityscape at night, or a bright, midnight sky lit by the moon and all his little companions.
They’re all laughing at him. Stars twinkle in the night because they’re laughing at the moon. He is an idiot, unaware that his life has become a joke. His shine is a pale reflection of the light that Helios casts on his vacant, glossy surface. He is a fragment of something greater, left to hang in space, alone and meaningless without the sun.
Get Some Potted Plants
Just because she left doesn’t mean you need to be alone, but a pet would be too much, too fast. The best thing about plants is how little they need. You can spend hours talking to it and it will never leave. It can’t leave.
You can be happy and alone, can’t you? Now, nobody—not Rachel, her friends, or the friends she made you forget—will be there to look at you askance when you laugh at whatever hilarious joke Pothos just told you. That plant is hysterical.
Create an Amazing Photo Mural
The best part about this step is replacing all those photos of you holding hands with that nameless harpy. How did you never notice that serrated, pointy beak before it ripped out your heart and left a vacuous portal in the center of your chest?
Take down all your photos of her. Make your walls ready to receive the honor of a shrine dedicated to your new god: Chaos. Use a polaroid camera to take photos of the things that exude her grace: crows, ravens, black silk—the entrance of a Hot Topic. Only the mother of darkness will hold you now. Only the weightless embrace of the abyss will absolve your human sins.
Destroy Everything
You are no longer a material being. Your existence transcends desire, greed, and necessity. Annihilate the space where your unholy coupling was consecrated. Everything in your bedroom reminds you of her. A redolent aroma wafts up from the cotton fibers of your carpet, where faint traces of fragrant perfumes and sweet-scented soaps are trapped for eternity. Rip up your floors and free them.
Her shadow passes along your walls when light filters in from the outside. Destroy the canvas that contains her persistent image. Tear down your walls. Obliterate all the furniture too. Tear apart the clothing and decorations that you bought together, giggling in naïve elation at the thought of a world where happiness existed.
There is only void now. You are nothing and everything. This room is a prison for your writhing essence. Eradicate all her gripping traces, before they lock you into this tiresome existence. Seek eudaimonia through destruction. Embrace a life of true moderation, a life of nothingness.