*I know my friends don’t like it when I’m emo but I wouldn’t be Ria if I weren’t emo. And I’d rather write about these things than hibernate, be suicidal, get catty, or have GERD or other stress-induced illness. Sorry friends.*

One day the body asked the heart, When I’m hurt the doctor heals it. But if you’re hurt, who will heal you? Then the heart said, I have to heal by myself. Is it because of that whenever someone is hurt, they have their own special way of healing it? Drinking, singing, releasing anger, laughing, crying, going to trips with friends and talking to them, and running in the marathon… or the worst thing is just ignoring that pain. My way of healing is by making cake and cookies in the morning like right now. …and I was healed from the smell of the baked cake. Can there be another treatment as sweet as this one?
-Kim Sam Soon, My Name is Kim Sam Soon Episode 4

How does one heal a broken heart, exactly? I do not know. Once upon a time, I played DotA for 12 hours straight just so I could forget, go home, and go to sleep right away. Without crying, without thinking of my ex-boyfriend, without feeling any pain. I get crazy.

Then, there was a time I’d drink beer. Every night. Again, just so I would be able to sleep right away when I get home. Most of the time, I still cried. I still thought of my ex. I still felt pain.

I am at the crossroad again and this time I really want to let go.

Times when my life gets too crazy. When there’s too much stress, too many things going on, when problems are at my doorstep, I tend to do one or more of these things…

Shut down. I do not have the guts to commit suicide, so I usually just shut down. I drown myself in television shows or books that I have previously read and just sleep. I eat, sleep, watch tv or read. Or sometimes, I just sleep. Eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. I can go on like that for days. Even weeks. And I ignore SMS, calls, and other forms of communication. Those times, my brain just shuts down. I think it’s my way of silencing the thoughts and forgetting the pain.

Cook or bake. Yes, like Kim Sam Soon, I find comfort by being in the kitchen. And I love doing it alone. I don’t care if I’m cooking 8 kilos worth of beef stew or 15 batches of brownies, I’d rather do it alone. When I’m in alone in the kitchen, I’m in control and that makes me very happy.

Write. When life becomes too stressful, I find comfort in writing. During a very stressful event, I was able to churn out more than 10 blog entries. In six hours. The more stressed and depressed I am, the more I write. And sometimes, I surprise myself with what I was able to accomplish.

Drink. I know it’s not healthy. And I’m probably gonna regret doing it. But I drink beer, copious amounts of it, when I want to shut down. I find beer to be effective in making me forget things, in getting me too sleep when too much is going on in my head. Beer has been a good friend, to be quite honest.

Work. Just like writing, work keeps my mind off of things and gives me a good reason to wake up and get up from my bed. It gives me something to look forward to and have some amount of self-worth and normalcy.

These things give me comfort when I am sad, lonely, or heart broken. Right now, I am one or all of these three… sad, lonely, and heartbroken. I am not sure yet. I need clarity.

More than clarity, I need to heal. And I don’t know yet how I am going to do that.

It’s April, my birth month and, as it has been these past few years, it is becoming stressful with a sh*tload of sh*t pouring down on me. And I look back to the past year and the rest of my life, and once again I am confronted with questions of self-doubt and insecurities. Once again, I am heartbroken. Sad and angry. Lonely even when there are people around me.

This time, I don’t know what I’ll do, how I’ll face it. I’m tired of crying. Tired of shutting down. And for my own sake, I would like to drink less. I was going to drown myself in work and preparations for upcoming events. Work and blogging have gotten too stressful and has, unfortunately, caused me some heartbreak too so I’d have to avoid those too.

And now I don’t know what to do? Bake? Blog about more happy things? Go to the gym as most other people do? Or maybe cut my hair?

I might cook up a yummy cake soon just to see if baking and the smell of bread and cake will heal me. Or maybe I’ll cook a nice big batch of beef stew or pasta just so I can pour out all my pain into chopping, stewing, and stirring for hours.

How exactly do you heal a broken heart?