👋 Enter my pity party
It's Monday. I'm here for you.
My pity parties never come with save the dates or dress-up themes.
They are always spur of the moment.
They usually happen when I compare my life to other people’s or when I get lost inside of a one-line rejection email for something I desperately wanted.
Often, on a Sunday afternoon, I get bored and replay some of the saddest moments of my life as if they have been edited down into 15-second TikTok clips that play one after another on a wide projector screen inside of my brain.
But not this one.
This one involved 105,683 people, an email, and a period.
Welcome to the Monday Pick-Me-Up. I messed up last week. I had a pity party. I wasn’t ready to invite you. But now I am.
My pity party started at 10:57am and it lasted until 11:40am. On the dot.
It had a rolling guest list.
First, the husband, then the dog, not the baby. She just kept looking at me with smiles as if she was attending my birthday party.
No, I said. It’s a pity party. A pity party! We do not giggle with our teeth out at a pity party. We frown until our lips droop so low down they feel like they are about to kiss our little belly button. We do not smile, even if there are so many silly things to smile at! We crunch our knuckles and growl. We make the people around us unsure of what to say next.
However, at 10:15am, I was not at my pity party.
I was sipping a coffee and watching my fingers dance along my keyboard. I was on a deadline to get a newsletter out for my business by 10:30am. It was an important newsletter because a big jewelry brand was paying me top dollar to run an ad inside of it.
Sponsorship deals are had to snag these days and when you get a good one, you want to impress the brand. One deal can lead to another, as long as you prove to the brand that you are the one for them. You prove this to them in two ways: by showing how many people opened up the email (open rates) and how many people clicked the link in the ad (they give you a unique link to use so they can track it on their end too).
By 10:30am, the newsletter was finished and the ad was inside of it. I was hugging the chair and writing an email to the brand telling them how excited I was that their ad just went live in the newsletter to my 100,000+ subscribers.
This excitement lasted until 10:55am, when Adam opened up that newsletter, eyeballed it, and clicked on the link in the ad.
Hey Jen, he hiccuped. The link doesn’t work.
What link doesn’t work?
The link in the ad.
10:56am was a long minute. It was the minute I pulled out every single device I had in the house that connected to WiFi just so I could open up the email and click the link. I thought maybe it was just Adam’s computer and phone! Maybe it was just our WiFi?
By the tail end of 10:56am, I was standing on the sidewalk, barefoot, clicking the ad again and again, seeing this ugly message:
By 10:57am, I was back inside of the apartment uttering the following words to Adam:
I am the world’s biggest idiot.
When I put the ad in my newsletter, I accidentally added a period at the end of the link.
This meant that when any of the 100,000 + opened the email, saw the ad, and went to click on it, their click went nowhere.
Jen, wow, I am sorry. Adam said.
Leave me alone! I shot back.
Welcome to 10:58am where the pity party was in full swing. Adam was begging to help. Goofy (the dog) was covering my pinky toe with warm kisses. Gemma (the baby) was smiling, waiting for me to smile back.
Weeee dooo not smile….
My pity parties last an awfully long time. My longest was around 22-days. I am stubborn. I take most things personally. I’m not quick to forgive anyone that I love. I melt when things go wrong, especially when I am the one who made them go that way.
And I don’t stop until I’m a puddle.
But I couldn’t really settle into this pity party because Gemma (the baby) wouldn’t stop smiling at me and because I really want to be a good mom, I had no choice but to smile back at her, which is something nobody has ever been able to get me to do at a pity party in my 35 years of existence!
So I moved into my bedroom, told all the guests to go home (aka stay in the living room), and decided to pity party on my own.
By 11:20am, I was bored in bed crying over a stupid email link that didn’t go anywhere. By 11:27am, I was trying to recruit more people to my pity party.
I emailed my best friend and told her what I did and by 11:28am she had a game plan laid out for me via email.
This is what you’re going to do next.
On the to-do list was to send a correction email to 105,683 people saying that I made a mistake and sharing the correct link. Once that went out, I was going to email the brand and let them know what happened and how I handled it.
I did not want to do this. Who wants to admit to over 100,000 people that they made a mistake and to the sweet brand who paid me money to do ONE THING right and tell them that I did that one thing wrong?
But I figured the sooner I did all of that, the sooner I could close my computer, and continue on with my pity party.
By 11:30am, I had sent out the emails, and I was back to feeling sorry for myself.
This isn’t worth it. It’s a link! It’s just a link. And if the brand is mad at me, let them be mad at me. So much more is important in life than this.
By 11:35am, I decided that If I was going to have a pity party, I should at least have it in clothes that weren’t leggings, so I put on outrageous pink pajamas. And what’s the point of a pity party in silence? So I put on music. And how can you play music alone in your room in funky pink pajamas without testing out some dance moves? Your finest dance moves.
And by 11:40am, I had exhausted myself of this situation. I walked out of the party, smiled at Gemma the baby, hugged Adam the husband, and kissed Goofy the dog and said:
That was really hard to stomach, but I’m ready to move forward. Thank you for being there for me. Let’s eat.
Every pity party needs to last as long as you need it to last. But it doesn’t have to be so bleak and boring. It can be as weird as you’re feeling on the inside. But as soon as you hear the voice in your head screaming: last call, let yourself take just one more shot of your own ughh what is life before realizing that everything is temporary, most mistakes flatten out eventually, and life always finds a way to go on.
It’s scary walking out of your own pity party because you almost regret the time you spent inside of the dark smelly place. But once the sun hits your eyes, and someone flashes you a smile, it’s almost convincing enough to shrug it all off and try again.
⚡Instant Pick Me Ups
📚: Not a book but I bought this notebook because it has my goal of the year on it and it’s just a good reminder to make the best of the situations you’re squatting in.
❤️: Galantine’s Day Gift List
I truly use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to remind my friends that I love them. Here are some of the gift ideas I’ve been eyeing for the people you adore.
Candy hearts and chocolate bars
A lip-shaped purse for a friend who has funky style
A unique way to send flowers
For a friend who likes to be cozy
For a friend who is always hosting
A fun treat to store candy or jewels
For kids who love to laugh
🎵: This was my pity party dance song :)
😮 Progress Report
Sharing updates on little things I am working on life.
I swear the universe is really making this whole psychical therapy thing hard. I called the office last Monday and spent 27 minutes on the phone with the receptionist. I repeated the spelling of my name 6 times and my insurance policy number 12 times before she told me this wasn’t working and to email her instead. I glared at the ceiling. On Tuesday, I sent the email with all of my details but the email would not go through:
I temporarily gave up until Thursday when I decided to try again. I went on their website, filled out the contact form, and they emailed me asking for my insurance information and all those details again. I replied to the email with all the details and again, it didn’t go through.
Addddam I belted out across the room. The universe is really coming at me with this one!!
Adam is not the kind of guy who believes that the universe speaks to people through bounced emails but even he was scratching his head wondering if this time I am right.
So I said: Fine, but let me try one more time with this place. And so I grabbed the phone and politely explained my saga to the receptionist on the other line.
You tried booking with ZocDoc? She said.
No!! I replied, trying to keep my voice from hitting the roof. I never once said a thing about Zoc Doc!
Oh, okay, well let’s see, we don’t have any open appointments available for February…
Rose, please listen. I need this appointment. I really do. My knee is hurting and I have about 9,000 people on my Monday newsletter email list who are waiting to see that I got over my fear and booked this appointment so please can you for one second prove to them, to me, that this is meant to be because I really feel like the universe is trying to speak to me and she’s saying this isn’t right!
Ma’am, Rose began. If I can offer you a suggestion, it’s that you might need more therapy than just the psychical kind.
Rose did not come through for your girl.
The call ended and soon after and I decided to reach out to five other places, some further away from where I live, but fine. I emailed them everything they needed from me: my insurance information, details about the injury, and my entire life story. I am now waiting back for just one of those places to make booking an appointment easier than Rose made it.
TLDR: No, I didn’t go to physical therapy. Thank you to the 128 people who believed in me anyway <3 and voted that I’d have an appointment booked by the time this email went out.
Why you’re getting this: I'm Jen Glantz and this is The Monday Pick-Me-Up newsletter. I've been sending it every Monday, for 9-years, to thousands of awesome humans, just like you. Thank you for letting this email live in your inbox. It truly makes my heart explode with joy.
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By my calculations you DID call to schedule an appointment at least 7 times so you basically did extra extra mega bonus credit.