My daughter, all of 12, had her first romance and her first heartbreak in the past few months. It went like this. Last night, as I was finishing up a podcast, I heard some chat noises. She talks to the annoying little dweep on Facebook chat. I reminded her it was time to get ready for bed. She said, “right, well [name] just broke up with me.” Nice move, [name]. The day before Valentine’s Day.

As someone who seems to have heartbreak on an endless loop in her life, I am horrified to see this happen to my daughter. I have to remember, she’s only 12. She has a lifetime ahead of her to get it right. This boy told her it was awkward between them, “we never hug or anything.”

I think the dweeb wanted to move things too fast. The little fake romance wasn’t working for him: he will grow up to be a jerk, right? He is all of 13 so I think we can cut him some slack, still, she learned a lesson and she learned it early. Is it a good thing to know that giving away your heart means it can sometimes get stomped on? What is the alternative? Stay single, marry someone who will never hurt you but may never set those hearth fires ablaze … or get lucky and find a guy you love AND who won’t break your heart. Tall order.

So I try to give her advice, which is like the lightbulb telling the Sun how to rise: what do I know about anything. I am the worst to ask. But yet, I’m all she’s got. So it’s up to me to try to tell her how to handle this, her first break-up.

I made up a list of ways to try to get over heartbreak fast — being that I’m pretty much the Heartbreak Kid at this point:

1. It’s not you, it’s them. No matter how many times people tell you this stuff you can’t hear it. To you it is always you: you weren’t something enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not normal enough, not nice enough, not popular enough – whatever it was, you think it’s you. That makes it feel a lot worse than it actually is. Most of the time, let’s face it, it isn’t you because they wouldn’t have chosen you in the first place. It really is them – their feelings changed. They met someone else, their desire faded – whatever it was it was their emotional shift and no amount of fixing or changing can alter that. Lest we forget Shakespeare who said, “love is not love that alters when alteration it finds.”

2. There are plenty of fish in the sea – it’s always hard to let go because when someone dumps you they take on godlike proportions – they suddenly become a lot more than they were before. Try to keep it all in perspective. Who they were when you first met them, before they tore your heart out with their teeth, ripped it apart savagely and cast it aside. Who were they? They were fairly ordinary, no? Maybe next time you start to fall in love quickly jot down the things about them before you really start falling hard. Or maybe just choose more wisely next time. There are plenty of fish in the sea – nice ones, kind ones, red ones, blue ones.

3. If you make a mistake it is not the end of the world. It only hurts for a little while. I told my daughter that heartbreak is like a virus; it passes fairly quickly, though it might keep you in bed for more than a few days. In the end, the sun comes up the next day and you will survive it.

4. School is more important than boys. This one needs no explanation except to say that we women are a lot of things on this earth – part of that is mothering and wifing. The other part is contributing brilliant things to society, helping those in need, having a self, a real self to foist upon the world. School is where it’s at, kid.

5. There’s always mom. Or dad. Or if there isn’t a mom or a dad there’s someone who will let you put your teary head on their shoulder and let you feel badly. My daughter let me let her feel badly. She plunked down and cried on my shoulder. I was glad I was there.

Back in the 1980s we all loved Laurie Anderson. There aren’t Laurie Andersons anymore. Young woman of that level of talent and intelligence are wearing fuck-me pumps and g-strings. The Kardashians rule the world now. But in my day there was Laurie. And she ruled. Performance art? A woman? Short hair? It was so new and cool and it kicked open so many doors for us girls coming of age. I wish for my daughter to get to know Laurie Anderson who doesn’t have to sell herself for public consumption but rather comments on it.

In O Superman she gets down to it: “There’s always mom. Hi mom. So hold me, mom. In your long arms…” Chills.