4 Ways To Stay Sane When Reality Feels Broken
I knew my relationship was a fraud when he went from booking a June vacation to saying work was overwhelming him. That's how these things work, men tell you they're too busy to acknowledge a text but somehow find time to like multiple Jessica Alba posts a day. So I drove to the mountains to figure out why I felt more relieved than sad about the impending end to a relationship I felt was end game.
Three days among the pines, and boom—the universe delivered the news about this guy with the precision of a well-timed punchline. I'd prepared for heartbreak and got clarity instead. Turns out he wasn't overwhelmed by work. He was just overwhelmed with juggling me and linen bedsheets with other women.
The trees were perfect witnesses to this information arriving from the universe. There's actual science behind tree hugging. Trees release chemicals called phytoncides that reduce stress hormones. The Japanese call it forest bathing, which sounds like a spa treatment for people recovering from men who think "I'm busy" is a personality trait.
Everyone I know is trapped in the same temporal Groundhog Day that started in 2016. We keep cycling through identical arguments about the same three topics, refreshing the same apps for different variations of the same disappointments, having the same conversations that lead nowhere. Time moves forward on calendars but not in our bones.
The math is simple and infuriating: average debt is now six figures, which means we're all millionaires in reverse. People work forty-hour weeks to afford studio apartments that cost more than their parents paid for houses with actual yards. Yet we're told the economy is strong, which is like calling a dumpster fire "atmospheric lighting."
Something broke in 2016—not just politically, but in terms of basic honesty in all our interactions. The center didn't hold, as poets predicted it wouldn't, except instead of slouching toward Bethlehem, we all just started lying toward nowhere in particular. We adapted by accepting less than we deserve and calling it realistic expectations.
Four Ways to Stay Functional When Everything Feels Broken
When your brain feels like a browser with forty-seven tabs open and the world seems designed to waste everyone's time, you need strategies that work even when your patience for modern life has officially expired.
These work because they assume you're done accepting less than you deserve.