Overcoming a meltdown is simple

Everything is fine! Keep on moving!

An exhaustive guide to overcoming an abrupt burnout, which happens toward the end of what was actually a long burnout, and requires exactly one final inconvenience to crack you.

• Wake up and become deranged one final time. (5 minutes)

• Ruminate in stone-cold silence while you drink a cold brew so strong that you give new and exciting fuel to your thoughts. (10 minutes)

• Do a little workout because unfortunately you read yesterday that decades of research prove that exercise fights anxiety and depression. That’s not the problem, but it can’t hurt. Frown at your slowly blossoming abs because we are still dedicated to being insane, despite our #gains. (25 minutes)

• “Shower” (stand under the water, frowning) and make a plan for the workday that isn’t remotely different from every other day. But today your careful to-do list feels crucial to your sanity and also completely novel. If I just follow this little outline in my Apple notes and try my best, we’ll be fine! (15 minutes)

• Blow dry your hair while realizing that your period starts next week. This is probably a big reason for the meltdown, but knowing this doesn’t make you feel better. It’s simply a reminder that nature is also out to get you!!! (8 minutes)

• Make the same smoothie (kale, almond milk, lemon peel, date, walnuts, ½ banana, ice — ty, Abbie) that you’ve been making near-daily for more than six months because it makes you feel like you’ve done something extremely virtuous. The smoothie is GREEN and filled with FIBER. (5 minutes)

• Plow through the to-do list at hand and ignore the many other deadlines/tasks/problems you have to solve that we are ignoring for the time being. (4 hours)

• Walk the dog and stop at a new pet store. Despite the fact that she is the reason you hit your limit the night before, Wednesday is her birthday and she deserves some little treats — despite being a dog and not having any concept of a birthday. This new shop also has little individual stalls for giving your dog a professional-seeming bath yourself. It honestly looks kind of fun and you’ll probably try it sometime because $30 is a small price to pay for not destroying your own bathroom and having a wet animal run zoomies around the apartment. (30 minutes)

• Continue to plow through work and have a small win when some new recording equipment seems to work well. (2 hours)

• Give the dog 40 treats and a new toy so she doesn’t destroy anything else in the apartment so you can bike up to your dentist appointment. And as much as you hate the dentist — is there no way to do this without pain?? — it’s not too bad today. You get to space out with your mouth wide open while watching Jeopardy! You only know about three answers in one round; it begins to make sense that someone so dumb could become so overwhelmed with things! (45 minutes)

• Come home and give the dog an extra treat for not destroying anything. (1 minute)

• Get some writing done. Eat a little bowl of the Goldfish that you hid last week to reduce snacking while listening to one of your favorite ASMR videos featuring a woman with a heavy Russian accent (recommendations available on request). Have the video playing in an incognito browser not because you are ashamed of how much you love the gentle whispers and crinkling sounds, but because it will mess up your YouTube algorithm otherwise. (30 minutes)

• While you may have canceled going to yoga, do not cancel on your friend Anna. She comes over, you make her a drink (Mexican Firing Squad — sounds racist but is delicious) and she chats with you while you make food: Cover a puff pastry with a mixture of ricotta, parmesan, and garlic. Top one half with burst cherry tomatoes and pesto, the other half with roasted zucchini, onions, and lemon zest. Feel like Martha Stewart lifting her post-jail spirits. (3 hours)

• Sit down to wrap up a little extra work and finalize this newsletter, which you are forgiving yourself for being a day late. You know you need to do a much better job of working ahead and abiding by an editorial calendar, and you’ll get there. Do your tappy-tapping while your partner plays the new Mortal Kombat, which is not remotely like the original you played with your childhood best friend. Absolutely no one is saying “Finish him” and there appears to be a LOT of plot and significantly more blood. (30 minutes)

• Remember you started macerating raspberries with honey, lemon juice and Amaro Nonio 30 minutes ago and now enjoy them over vanilla ice cream. Give yourself an incredible amount of credit for your foresight and creativity. And beauty and grace. Baby, we’re back. (10 minutes)

There you have it, Haters: the secret to living well after a meltdown is to push through and not ever address anything directly. If you learn nothing else, understand that the solution is 73% friendship and food, 17% ignoring things.