Everything tasted like shit. So I stopped eating for weeks.

So there I am. 7:45 am. Yelling at my eggs about how shitty and heavy my life feels. I take a bite, and it tastes like ass. Did I even salt these motherfuckers?

I spoon up some blueberries with whole fat Greek yogurt and raw, unfiltered honey, and cry because it also tastes like more ass. No flavor, except for the contempt I have about how dead and anxious I feel. For months now, breakfast, which used to be a place of joy, held nothing for me but the burden of monotonous routine because it sucked. I'd cook, I'd clean, and I’d taste nothing as I cried. I raged. I felt defeated. All before my day even started. It was like being stuck on a Groundhog Day turntable, and it was kicking my fucking ass.

Deciding I couldn’t stand the thought of doing this another day, I decided not to eat breakfast for two weeks.

Yeah, I really showed who was fucking boss there… For those who know me, I clearly enjoy making impulsive, stupid decisions. Still.

After 16 days of skipping breakfast and still feeling like shit, I just carried my crying and rage to the gym and then to the shower. And let me tell you, shaving while you're emotionally fucked up isn’t good… or a good idea.

I was losing it, and it scared me to admit that. But I was also really fucking fed up with being such a douche about it. So, I decided to do something completely unexpected.

The next morning, I made myself coffee—and it was shit. Like Starbucks shit. You know, the burnt taste after you just paid $4.00 and had to wait in a line filled with online orders because the people not there seem to be more important than the people who are—that kinda shit.

Typically, this would spiral me out of fucking control. I'd think about how shitty my day was, then how shitty my month was, then my life. My drama. My issues... every fucking thing you can imagine, all from a shitty cup of coffee. But instead, I thought about why I had to drink this shitty coffee: the machine I usually get coffee from was broken. And that made me realize how fucking good that coffee from that motherfucking machine really was and how lucky I’d been.

In that moment, I realized two things: 1) That machine will be fixed one day soon, and 2) I’ll soon have really good fucking coffee again—and I will never take for granted just how special that coffee is.

Curious, I made breakfast. I started to think about a few other things I didn’t give enough credit to. And when I dove into my meal, my eggs tasted amazing—like, how good is salt? My yogurt with blueberries and honey tasted superb. A text I had been sitting on didn’t actually seem bad; and it wasn’t. And if I’m being honest, it was a holy fuckballs kind of moment that really did change a lot of my perspective. I knew that one day I’ll be able to say, “that shitty coffee changed my life for the better.”

Now, I can’t say every morning has been 100% foolproof. I’ve caught myself at times slipping back into that shit-hold-on-me routine, where I just wallow over my breakfast. But instead of giving in, I practice a tip I got from a friend: I sit for at least 90 seconds and just breathe as deeply as possible, thinking of nothing. Sometimes, it really works. Other times, I have to sit longer and work through the emotions until I can get at least five positive feelings to surface. If all else fails, I run upstairs, put on my fanciest fucking outfit or the polo that gets all the ladies looking, and hit as many coffee shops as possible to be seen. I soak in the compliments and looks to make myself feel better about that day. Is it a little odd? Fuck yeah… but this is war, baby—ain't no rules. Plus, I’m not going back to skipping breakfast again. Fuck that shit.

The moral of all this? We gotta find ways to get out of our fucking heads. And we have to stop letting bad emotions creep into our everyday routines. Because if we don’t, over time, things as simple as eating, dressing, driving, or even saying hi to the people we care about will start to become negative experiences for us.