Please note that this is not 17 things to do to stop having a bad day. But, importantly, it’s also not 17 things that will make a bad day worse. It’s more about accepting the bad day and moving through it. Here’s a quote about that:

The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.

Mark Manson

1. Send your husband snaps of your crying child to illustrate your feelings.

2. Sit on the back porch and write in a black spiral bound notebook with a black no.2 pencil.

3. Play Hozier and Snoop Dogg and Taylor Swift and Iron & Wine and Lana Del Rey loudly while you do dishes and put your house in immaculate order. Repeat as necessary. 

4. Go on a cross walk. Not to be confused with a crosswalk, a cross walk is a brisk walk taken during the hottest part of the day. Every time you think a cross thought, you walk a little harder. A brain hack: voluntary physical suffering often eases mental suffering.

5. Pay the people who work for you. Bad day-ness doesn’t need to be spread around.

6. Drink a second bomb. No, I will not explain what I mean by that.

7. Throw away a too-small, stained piece of clothing.

8. Gather up some crumpled cash from the laundry tips cache (heh), and carry it with you on your cross walk to the place at the end of the road where you can buy fresh-squeezed lemonade.

9. Take a bubble bath. You’ll need it after the cross walk.

10. Eat a bag of microwave popcorn and watch Hamilton on a very high volume. After you’re done, be a little sad and a little impressed at how there is no other show in the world that feels quite like Hamilton.

11. Rock your baby to sleep and continue to hold her through her entire nap. Take a picture of the little hand pressed into the round cheek. Play some Scrabble on your phone. Listen to her breathing and think about other times you’ve held her just like this in the 11 months since she was born.

12. Do the laundry from beginning to end, because you’re not having such a bad day that you won’t need clean clothes in the future.

13. Take a picture of a black vulture sliding across a blue sky. Think about how he probably wishes you were dead.

14. Put on your favorite lipstick as often as necessary.

15. Make yourself a dinner of balsamic roasted carrots, rice cooked in ramen broth, and honey-garlic glazed salmon. You know, like you’re a person worthy of good food.

16. Speak to your child, and watch the light in her face. Play games with her and listen to her delicious child’s laughter. Appreciate how she doesn’t let her extreme familiarity with you stop her from being delighted with your attention.

17. Throughout the day, keep a record of the things you do, and call it a list of things to do on a bad day. Let writing these things down pull you into the present, and be reminded of that Marcus Aurelius quote:

Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole… Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” You’ll be embarrassed to answer.

Marcus Aurelius