Some days, you don’t just lose your cool. Some days, everything you’ve been holding in explodes like a stadium full of fireworks and mine went off at Yankee Stadium. But before you imagine me throwing beer cans or storming the field like a superhero, let me set the stage. I had basically established a mini residency there. I knew the employees, and they knew me. If I wasn’t sitting in Legends, I was in the Audi Club and was known for two things: I was kind, and I kept a drink in my hand.

Now before you assume I was a lush, I was far from it. But let’s be real, cosplaying a Yankee fan, you can only last so long fully sober.

But back to what matters most: I was kind. I always said please and thank you, always asked about people’s days and interests that came up in previous conversations. And thank God I did, because if you had told me in June that would be the reason I got into the stadium with no ticket or pass, I would’ve thought you were on the strongest drug out there.

October was hell in every arena of my life last year. Work had me in a chokehold, impossible deadlines, people crossing boundaries I didn’t even know could be crossed, and that slow simmer of frustration that builds when you realize nobody is listening. Between working side jobs I hated more than a cop pulling you over for going 3 to 5 over, and having to play nice with people I simply wanted to scream “fuck off” at but couldn’t because I had bills, it was my own personal hell.

Acting auditions? A drought that made me question every talent I thought I had. Aside from sending me absolute bullshit auditions, they’d ask if I felt okay playing roles I’d rather bend all my fingers backward than do. Modeling agency contract? Pure nightmare energy, like being trapped in a legal Kafkaesque hell with no exit. Every rejection, every microaggression, every little slight added weight, and I carried it all with this polite smile that screamed “I am fine” while internally plotting my emotional revolution. Looking back, I held it together very well and probably would’ve never lost it had a simple “yes, I have the pass” been sent in the group chat.

Enter family and friends. During this time, I can say my friends were great. They were there for me through every manic decision, phone call, and cry session. I think my friends were more concerned than anything. I have a talent for allowing people to treat me awfully and still painting them in the most beautiful and bright colors to others. Now, this is no dig at my ex. My ex was a great person. But the people around him, I will gladly stand in front of God and tell Him to banish them to hell. Boundaries ignored, questions I didn’t want to answer, unsolicited advice that felt like chains wrapped around my brain. Normally, I can handle this chaos with humor, but October me had other plans.

The day I went rogue, I was already in hell. I was on a crazy diet and gym routine, eating under 1,000 calories and burning 2,000 a day. People who told me I was too big in August were now bitching that I was too thin in October. My family started asking about my holiday plans and my ex. Everybody had a thousand things to say to me, and not one was the question “How are you doing?”

So after spending 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. getting absolutely riddled with complaints, insults, and requests, I went to the house just to grab my pass and be on my way. Long story short, I get to the house, my pass is gone, the Snickers bar I hid in the freezer is gone, and somebody had the audacity to even take my Fenty lip gloss that was placed in his bathroom. I remember standing in the hallway, ears ringing, face getting hot, and deciding enough was enough. I was going to spazz, and I needed the world to feel my energy. I did not care if I embarrassed and brought everybody else down with me along the way.

Enter Yankee Stadium. The crowd was already rowdy and packed. It was a cool October night, but I was still running very much hot. I remember looking around and smiling because finally, this was the perfect arena for release. My rage had been building minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. I had been simmering, stewing, and now the kettle boiled over. I didn’t even have a ticket. I needed my pass to get in, and I didn’t even have that, but you know what? Who cares? The energy demanded an entrance.

I walked up to Gate 6, smiled, and said hi. I was greeted with a smile and a “welcome back.” I went to reach in my bag like I had my purse, and they did what they always do: “Just go straight ahead, sweetheart.” I smirked and went straight in, feeling like I had the power to shake the foundations of the universe. And I let the frustration loose. Everyone I passed was an obstacle in my emotional release: the guy in line holding his beer like it was sacred, the vendors moving too slow, the fans with their annoying chants. All of it built up on top of everything I was already going through. And when I met my target audience, I let them have it.

Aside from the fact I was looking at my pass on the neck of a person I had never seen a day in my life, my lip gloss being applied on the lips of a girl I wanted nothing more than to upside her head, and three men looking at me like they were told they were about to meet the Grim Reaper, I unleashed hell. I know they probably wished it was Satan they saw and not me. I yelled, gestured, raged in ways that only make sense when you’ve spent weeks living under constant stress and heartbreak.

Leaving the stadium didn’t stop the momentum. I went to the gym afterward, still vibrating with fury. Machines? Witnesses? Sweat dripping? Perfect. My rage was performance art disguised as fitness. I called my friends, telling them all that happened and how I would stop at nothing until they all paid for what they did to me and how they made me behave, just wishing the absolute worst on everybody and anybody who ever wronged me in life.

And then night fell. 2 a.m. rolled in, and I was still mad, mad in the existential way that makes you question why everyone exists and why mediocrity is allowed to roam free. I didn’t go to bed. I didn’t heal. I stayed mad because healing felt weak, and I had energy that refused to be contained. I ended up calling him and raging on him again, calling him names I don’t even know how I knew. I was acting how I felt, ugly, upset, and demonic.

And then, the irony: I woke up still mad. Not bitter, not calm, not reflective, mad. But instead of collapsing into recovery, I jumped right back into dating. Yep, in my chaotic October mind, nothing says “I’m coping” like throwing yourself into romantic chaos while emotionally raw. It was beyond goofy. It was reckless. It was iconic.

But here’s the truth: this meltdown was necessary. The rage, the shouting, the breaking of invisible walls, it cleared the clutter in my brain, burned off the toxicity I had been carrying, and made space for the next chapter. Sometimes, you need to explode before you can rebuild. Before you can entertain new possibilities. Before you can have fun with someone who doesn’t demand your energy. Hello, Cub.

So yes, I lost it at Yankee Stadium, which is still a running joke among me and my friends to this very day. I scared everybody. Even when I “calmed down,” others were still saying to watch me and make sure I was okay and didn’t run down on anybody. I continued losing it at the gym. I screamed into the night. I woke up mad. But all that energy was transformative. It made me fearless. It made me wild. It made me alive in a way that calm mornings never could. And yes, it also made the eventual dating chaos and the eventual hair transformation feel like natural next steps, a logical continuation of a month that refused to be boring.

Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do for your soul is not to meditate, not to breathe, not to journal. Sometimes, the most productive thing is to let yourself go completely, to let your fury become art, to enter spaces uninvited, and to scream at the universe while it watches in awe. Yankee Stadium wasn’t just a meltdown; it was my liberation. And yes, it was messy, but the mess was mine, and it was spectacular.