👋 1-800-Complain

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Everyone says complaining isn't good for you. Google says it's bad for your health.

You hear: Stop complaining! so many times that you do that -- you stop.

You don't complain to anyone about anything.

But then you go home at night and rub the makeup off until your skin feels like sandpaper and smooth-talk your complaints for the day into the fog of the mirror.

Or worse.

You don't say them out loud.

You press them into the roof of your mouth. You feel them become chunks when you gargle mouthwash.

You wake up in the middle of the night and feel them turn into bubbles in your stomach and think: what if complaints exit us as gas?

Nobody likes a complainer. Nobody will tell you complaining is good for your soul. But what if everyone is wrong?

👋 Welcome to the Monday Pick-Me-Up. I'm so bad at complaining out loud. I'm convinced nobody wants to listen. But it doesn't mean I don't have the urge to try every now and then. Like this week — this week all I wanted was a complain buddy. Here is what I found.

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1-800-Complain

On Monday I wake up and my brain is restless. I have alllllll of these complaints about my own little life and nobody to tell them to.

I am not the complainer friend.

I am the listen to everyone else complain friend.

So I put my pants on and walk the block with my decaf coffee hoping someone will ask me how my day is.

And when they do, I say:

Gosh, it’s been a day.

It’s only 6:35am and this person looks me up and down. I’m not dressed like I went out the night before and I’m not carrying any bags — shockingly not even under my eyes.

This person is a neighborhood frienquaintance. We’re on a first name basis only. She know what I look like when I roll out of bed but she doesn’t know how to find me on social media.

It’ll go up from here. She says, of course. It’s now 6:36 am. Nobody wants to hear a list of complaints before their eyes have even adjusted to the sunlight.

So I repeat what I’ve always heard all of my life:

Don't complain. Just be happy. Be happy for what you have! Life is short!

And I chug my hot decaf coffee and close my eyes. I feel the complaints melt into my heart, my liver, my large, and then my small, intestine.

I’ll be happy! At least I’ll appear that way.

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On Tuesday, I run through my phonebook. I need to share these complaints to someone. I’m feeling sad, okay?

Everyone feels sad sometimes, even me! I tell the neighborhood frienquaintance. It’s 7:05am. She asked me if I’m any better today.

Talk it out, it’ll make you feel better. But before I’m able to clear my throat and start from the top, she tugs her dog’s leash and waves goodbye.

Back to my phonebook. I have friends! I have more friends today than I ever had in my 36 years. But to most of them, I am not the complainer friend. I am the listener friend. If I called them out of the blue and said: I’m in a real tear-stained funk, can I tell you why?

They might spit out their coffee and 100% think this is some type of phone scam: Jen’s into AI! Maybe someone cloned her voice and is calling us pretending to be her.

The listener friend cannot fall apart. The listener friend has to be ready, at all times, to listen to their friends complain.

So I text another listener friend and toss her some crumbs.

I don’t feel like I’m a good mom and I haven’t slept in weeks and 57 things went wrong with a project I’m on.

Two listener friends rarely ever complain to each other, but when they do, it’s serious.

My listener friend listens, offers advice, and makes my heart feel a little less swollen.

Until the next day.

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On Wednesday I wake up and the complaints have gone through a shredder and now they aren’t one big ball but instead, tiny little pieces of scrap paper floating around my body.

I touch my thigh and I feel a complaint about the tiny apartment I still live and how it’s holding all of us back.

I touch my elbow and I feel a complaint about how unhealthy I’ve become and all of the takeout is probably rotting my arteries as we speak.

I touch my knee and I feel a complaint about how I can’t let go of so much postpartum early motherhood regrets. I rub my knee a little more: Why can’t I let this painful stuff go!!!

I decide to start a hotline:

1-800-complain.

People can call in and unravel.

Nobody is on the other line.

But even so, there’s beauty in picking up the phone and getting all of your hurt off your chest.

Yes, of course, there’s therapy but I’d have to pay someone $200 an hour just for them to ask me: Hold on a second, who is George? And when you said lonely even though you’re never alone, you mean what exactly?

If nobody else uses this hotline, I at least will.

So I reach out to the people who sell 800-numbers and say:

I have cash! Let me complain!

But they too turn me down:

So I write back to Dominick C and complain:

Why does everything in live feel so freaking hard?

I’m not a paying customer. Dominick owes me nothing! He never writes back.

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On Thursday I get lunch with a friend who complains when she sits down.

Let me tell you about what’s going on. Her hamburger sits untouched as she shares all of the thing going wrong in her life.

I eat my entire salad, two rolls, and order a side of mac n cheese. She talks through the entire meal and I love it not only because it’s heroic to find someone who can just plop down on a chair and collapse into their complaints regardless of whether or not the person they are sharing a meal with wants to hear any of it or cares.

I care, especially about the complaints she shared when I was buttering up two rolls. Those were complaints I was thrilled to hear because they were also mine.

She’s practically in tears about the things that are breaking her heart and I’m smiling because those things are breaking mine too but nobody knows because I haven’t shared my complaints and plus they are now confetti inside of me.

I’m sorry you feel that way right now. I tell her. Honestly, It’s kind of strange because I’m feeling those ways too.

I leave the lunch with a throbbing headache as if the complaints she shared that I share are trying to escape my body and got stuck too high up.

Before bed, I write down all the things I want to complain. The list of short. There are seven things. Each might take 20-minutes. Nobody has time to hear all of that.

But I am a person with so many friends and so what if I shared a little bit with each of them? That’s what I’ll do! I promise myself that by 5pm on Friday my complaints will be scattered around the inboxes and iMessages and Instagram DMs of the people who know me as: Jen Glantz? She’s my friend!

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On Friday, I run into the frienquaintance again. It’s 6:45 am and she side shuffles past me.

I’m late to a work meeting! I have to go!

But I…I wanted to complain!

She rounds the corner and doesn’t look back. I catch up to her at the red light. She’s stuck with me now.

Monday was a real doozy! I wait for her to chime in but she checks her Apple watch most likely texting her emergency contact to help her get away from me. So was the rest of the week because I realized I just needed to get things off my chest ya know? I just needed someone to listen to my complaints.

The light turned green and the frienquaintance stopped. I stopped.

I’d really like to listen to you but I just…

I get it!

I just have to go!

I tell myself not to use this as a sign that nobody in the whole world wants to hear my complaints. I believe that my frienquaintance really did have to rush back for a work meeting. Not really though. I don’t believe that. I just believe she didn’t want to start her day with an earful of gobbledygook from my brain.

So I wait until lunch time before firing off complaints to a handful of friends.

One calls me almost immediately. Hi! I’m walking to grab lunch if you want to unload.

I spend five minutes covering the high-level outline of my top three complaints.

Another friend turns it into a game. She asks me to attach an emoji to each complaint and I do. It makes me kind of laugh?

One other friend gives advice back and I’ll never actually follow any of it (nobody ever actually listens to advice) but I appreciate the heart, effort, and true empathy she put into each of her responses.

By 5pm, I’m exhausted from complaining. Google is right. It’s not good for your health. It makes you thirsty, sleepy, and craving anything chocolate.

But it also makes the things you’re so worked up about in your life feel light and airy — finally —- like pound cake.

I went to sleep that night and none of my problems were fixed, edited, or changed in any way. But the complaints that were so comfortable inside of me suddenly felt like they were crawling away, finding space for themselves in my baseboards.

Fine, complaining isn’t good for you. But we do a heck of a lot of things that aren’t good for us (see: the sugary candy I’m eating as I type).

Just because it’s not good for you doesn’t mean that every once in a while —- or once a week — or once a day — you just let it out. You let some of the heavy burdens you stuff inside your joints out of your strong-willed body.

And if you ever want to complain, know that I, Jen Glantz, will be here to listen.

Love,

Jen

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⚡Instant Pick Me Ups

📖: Finally finished this book and wow — it was a complete and utter thrill. The writing is brilliant. The plot makes your eyes pop. It’s soooo strange but also sooo interesting. I can see why people don’t like the book but I can also see why people (me) are obsessed.

🛍️: Cool finds:

• Eyeing this jean skirt for the fall

• A fun $6 desk item that can light up your afternoon

• I got this as a charcuterie board to go box. It comes in handy!

• Fun sweater for summer and fall

🎵: Back to listening to this on repeat

😊 My Real Life:

• Not drinking coffee/caffeine has become my entire personality. I am bitting my nails every second of the day waiting for someone to say: So Jen, what’s new with you? Just so I can extend my neck out and get extra close to them to whisper: You’re never going to believe this but my entire life feels different. They always ask why and that’s when I hit them with my simple little response: Coffee. I don’t drink it and I’ve never felt better. It’s kind of true. I’m still really tired (but I have a toddler and I don’t sleep a lot) and I do crave the taste of cold brew to the point that I looked up if cold brew perfume has actual caffeine in it (I’m still not sure). But my brain fog is gone and it hasn’t been gone since giving birth to Gemma 17-months ago! My friend pointed out that I’m a real thrill: I don’t eat meat, drink, have caffeine, and I try to limit sugar. She’s right — I’m a very unique type of weirdo — but the un-caffeinated version of me is feeling good (for now).

• It’s time for me to have a hobby again. I’m thinking of signing up for a local class to take. I’ve done improv, stand-up comedy and a lot of writing ones before. I’m between acting 101 and fiction 101 — what do you think would be better?

• I appreciate you reading this super long newsletter. Last week, so many of you reached out and said hello + shared comments about how you look forward to reading this. It always means so much to hear that and your support keeps me going —- I mean that.