Could this be considered a form of discrimination?

For reals?!

I saw this a couple of weeks ago whilst trying to spend some birthday dough. Honestly, it’s not like they’re disabled. Most pregnant women choose to be pregnant and have small children. And what if one was a week or a month pregnant? Would one still be eligible to park there? Ridiculous!

Where’s my “Single Female” special parking spot?!

The Seven (and then some) Stages of a Break Up.

 1. Hurt/Angry: You’re angry and sad; you cry and you yell and cry some more because it hurts so bad and you feel so violated and you’re angry and just can’t stop until you pass out from exhaustion.

*Somewhere in between you start to remind yourself of something a friend once told you: “It’s OK when your heart breaks because…” but you can’t remember the rest so you just keep telling yourself, “It’s OK when your heart breaks. It’s OK.”

2. Shock: You go through your day-to-day life numbly; a hollow shell of your former self. You may even be able to talk about the break up without crying. The Hurt/Anger comes back sporadically during this time, the pain coming from your heart in small doses is released via tears.

3. Sadness: Deep, painful, unbearable sadness that renders you incapable of keeping your composure and the only thing running through your head is, “Why?” And you suddenly want everything to rewind and go back to normal and you want to start over but know you can’t and so you just keep crying until your eyes are puffy and your nose is raw and there’s a pile of crumpled tissues next to your bed and you tell yourself you’d rather be numb again or even bent over a toilet hungover; anything but what you feel now. Why? Why? Why?

This lasts for two days, but no more than three because you tell yourself you’re stronger than that and you remind yourself, “It’s OK when your heart breaks.”

4. Sadness Aftershocks: The sadness lingers, but is random. You feel the tears well-up when you have to talk about it, but you embrace and release, knowing that day-by-day it’s slowly fading and like a ship leaving the harbor, eventually it will be out of sight.

5. One Week: You hit the one-week-since-break-up mark without even realizing it and determine that starting now, there will be no more tears!

And there aren’t anymore. You experience quiet, quick moments of sadness but instead of dwelling on them, you move forward, past them. And for now, everything seems to be getting better…

6. Loss of Confidence: Self explanatory. You feel fat, ugly, dumb, etc. Generally unattractive as a whole. You wonder why guys don’t like you, why they cheat and then you feel worse that someone has robbed you of your confidence and you’re annoyed at yourself for letting them and that you’re feeling sorry for yourself and thinking this way in the first place! Annoyed! And fat!

*Somewhere in between these you actually miss him. But you loved him and you’re dealing with this break up and you’re lonely, so of course you would. Plus, you’re pms’ing and that’s what you chalk most (if not all) of these lonely feelings up to.

7. Man Hater Mode: You can’t stand them. You can’t stand the thought of being touched or kissed or holding hands. The thought of sex turns your stomach. You have to constantly pull yourself from a pessimistic place and remember the words of one of your oldest friends from the last time you went through a nasty break up: “You are not a man hater!” And this is what you constantly remind yourself, “I am not a man hater! I’m just going through a difficult time!” But you’re still having a hard time conversing (in a kind manner) with your male compatriots and you’re secretly hoping their romantic relationships crash and burn. And then you immediately feel absolutely terrible for thinking it (and actually writing it out!) and take it all back because, “I am not a man hater! I’m just going through a difficult time!”

Slowly all of this will fade and your confidence begins to reemerge and you stick with your current mantas, “It’s OK when your heart breaks” and “I am not a man hater! I’m just going through a difficult time!” and use the amazing, overwhelming, awe-inspiring love and support of your beautiful friends and family to help you heal. And you realize that while you may be jaded and pessimistic (and perhaps a bit self-deprecating), ultimately you haven’t given up on love. However, during this time you have also been contemplating the saying, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” and think that maybe Alfred Lord Tennyson was full of shit (or drunk) when he said that. And then you laugh to yourself because you’re (mostly) kidding. Mostly.

And life goes on…