Finals week and a break up might seem like two completely different things, but the phases we go through to “get through them/over them” are actually very similar. It’s not fun, it’s not easy, and it certainly takes a toll on us. Without our friends, a box of tissues, maybe even a box of chocolates, our Redbull drinks or six coffees, sleepless nights, a survival kit, and a rewarding night out afterwards, we might not make it through either of these terrible, inevitable situations in life.
Stage 1: Denial
When you first end things with your SO it’s almost like it never happened. You don’t want to face the reality that it’s over. You might even go to text them or call them to tell them something crazy that just happened and then it dawns on you… it’s over. They’re no longer yours. At first it’s really hard to come to terms that the two of you are no more and you might even catch yourself delaying putting your Facebook status back to “single” or changing your background photo of the two of you on vacation.
Finals week is hell. We procrastinate even dealing with the fact that it’s approaching—let alone studying for endless hours. We tell ourselves it’s not real, we pray it’s not real. We might even avoid looking at the syllabus and study guide because let’s be honest, the syllabus says that it’s next week and the study guide is five freakin’ pages long of terms you’ve long forgotten.
Stage 2: The feels
In a breakup, you might first deny it and pretend it never happened but once reality sets in you get swarmed with all the feels. Sometimes so many feels that your body goes numb. You’re flooded with emotions and reminiscing on all the good times you had with them—the bad times just seem like a blur in the distance—aka my vision without my glasses. You’ll cry, you’ll scream, you’ll punch your pillow, you’ll re-read all the cute texts, you’ll go through every Facebook post and Instagram picture. Life seems to be flipping upside down and you won’t remember where the rest of that bottle of Moscato went…
Dealing with finals is pretty similar. You’ll cry and scream. You might even throw a tantrum. You’re overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety, stress and confusion—when did that professor even cover introspection in the 1900’s?! What the hell is a “zeitgeist” again? You’ll sit there for hours just crying at the textbook you never read, the piles of notecards and the lack of ink in all your pens. Like with a breakup, life is flipping upside down and you won’t even remember where the rest of your seventh Venti-Iced Caramel Macchiato went…
Stage 3: Anger
After the feels is when anger starts to set in. You’re mad, they did you dirty and they ripped through your chest and did the bachata all over the heart you wore on your sleeve. Your vision is no longer blinded by the good times and all the pointless arguments, the back and forth bullshit and the reasons why the breakup had to happen are now clear as day. You no longer feel sad, you feel mad and you’re ready to go out and pull a Carrie Underwood and slash some tires.
After the studying is –almost- done and you’re almost certain you know everything, anger overwhelms you. You might even start yelling to yourself and your roomie, “Who needs to know what HTML stands for anyway?! When the hell am I ever going to use this in real life situations? I bet my professor gets off on us studying for hours on all this crap I’m never going to use again… what a jerk.” You begin to devise ways to piss off your Philosophy professor and all the comments you’re going to make discounting Plato and Aristotle in your open response questions. You’re not in tears anymore but all you see is notecards in red ink—because that’s how pissed you are.
Stage 4: Confronting your ex/exam
Your initial reaction is to slap them in the face and let them know how good life is without them. You want them to see you having the time of your life—even if it’s just walking across campus on a rainy day, you’re doing it and you’re doing it even better without them by your side. But then you realize, the best revenge is no reaction at all. So you see them looking in your direction and you quickly look away, pretending you never even noticed they were there in the first place. Your friends tell you how frantic they look and you smile because you know it’s because you’re not giving them the reaction they want. It wasn’t easy but seeing them for the first time since the breakup but it made you stronger, it made you confident in your decision to not text them at 3 am telling them you burned their favorite jersey.
The same goes for finals. When your professor initially hands out that ten page, front and back exam, you want to rip it up and throw it at them. You want to call the exam (and maybe even your professor at this point) every name in the book. But you show no fear, you don’t even flinch when you see the open response portion of the exam. You take that exam with confidence because you know you’ve just studied for 72 hours straight with no sleep and negative $27 in your bank account because you really needed those extra coffees and late night pizza. At the end of the exam, when your hand has cramped up for the third time in the past hour and you gracefully put your pencil down, you slide that final right over to your professor, maybe even shoot them a wink, flip your hair over your shoulder—or just do the classic “brush your shoulders” off, you can walk out of the classroom and finally breathe again for the first time in a week.
Stage 5: Acceptance
This is my favorite part of a breakup. You’ve accepted it’s over and you’re actually okay with it. You can sleep again and focus on yourself again. The bed doesn’t seem so empty and you spend time with the gym instead of the sad rom-com’s… besides let’s be real, you’ve watched every rom-com on Netflix (twice) and all the ones left on the Premium channels aren’t good anyways. You go out with your friends and enjoy the night. You’re not concerned with the fact that your ex and their new beau might be there, you’re concerned with dancing the night away with that tequila silver in hand. Life finally seems to be on track again and you realized you are way better off without that person anyway—there are plenty of fishies in the sea and it’s time to go set some bait!
Also my favorite time for finals—it’s OVER! You did it, you kicked final’s ass and now it’s time to celebrate. The textbook doesn’t seem so scary and notecards no longer make you cringe just by the sight of them. Your pens might be empty of ink but it’s time to buy some new ones and focus on the next semester. And hey, whenever there’s finals that usually means there’s a break approaching. So enjoy your winter break, plan something fun and exciting. Focus on packing your suitcase instead of packing your brain full of facts that you’ll forget after the exam anyway. Take a break, finals are over and it’s finally time to put the books and studying to rest and relax!
Or putting roofie's in girl's drinks, I don't know, you tell me? Sorry too soon?
So you might have thought that your recent breakup and your upcoming finals have nothing in common but you were totally wrong! Now not only do you not have to feel alone in your breakup—but now you know someone else is out there frantically worried about their final just like you are. The first couple steps are always the worst but there is a light at the end of the tunnel—good luck!
