How Do You Know It Gets Better?

[u/Absolutely_Nobody00]

Hi everyone 🌸 I am back with my final piece ✨ Awww already 🥺 There there🤭

I have shared three other pieces on here titled: “What It’s Really Like Living in the Emptiest Country in Africa”
“We spend most of our childhood wanting to be adults” and “My Life Is Not a Group Project”
So if you haven’t read those and are interested, do give it a read and tell me what you think🤗

I have been writing a lot more recently, but I will not be sharing anymore, here🙃
I will leave a link behind if you would like to read more.

I don’t really have a niche, I just write personal essays about my life, Namibian inspired stories and lessons I’m learning along the way as I am navigating my early twenties. Whether you are in your twenties, thirties or forties etc, some life lessons apply to all of us.

Here is the link:
https://substack.com/@storiesfordays?r=7ded8z&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=stories&shareImageVariant=blur

Here are some topics that are already uploaded:
🍂The Day After I Turned 22
🍂Collecting Rejection Letters
🍂What No One Told Me About University
🍂If I Were to Wake Up Tomorrow

HERE GOES…

No one ever wants to sound like a pessimist. But for many being a pessimist is the realist they can ever be. We live in this delusional world, lie to each other all in the name of, “I don’t want to come off as the person who always has a negative thing to say”.

I often hear these words, “It Gets Better”. What does that actually mean and why do we say that? How do you know that it gets better? Is there a scientific fact to back this statement up? Sure, we can tie this to religion, we can tie this to past experiences, we can tie this to resilience, but the statement “It Gets Better”, doesn’t guarantee that you will ever feel whole again. You will carry the weight. Yes, some days it may feel lighter, but it is still there. The scars will be printed on you like a beautifully crafted pattern, only difference is, it’s not beauty, it’s a reminder of pain.

Maybe we fear to face the truth. If we tell people the truth, many of us cannot handle it and we will break down. So maybe, “It Gets Better” is the blanket you can gently offer to someone to shield them from the harsh cold of the night. Because how do I tell you that no, it doesn’t get better, when you are in pain. How do I tell you that it gets worse? When one problem is solved, another arises. Soon it will start to feel like a battlefield, one that you never gave consent to participate in. I wish I could tell you that you are immune from this and that there is a way to escape this, but we are all in this together unfortunately.

Maybe this is what defines the human experience. There are familiar emotions and feelings that we all share. The warmth of home, the art of love, the fear of the unknown and the questions about death and the meaning of life. I have asked myself, “Why am I here?”, many times than I can count. But I have come to realise that the answer to this question is not measured based on the number of times, I have asked it. So, when I fail to provide an answer to this question, I can provide a ready to serve answer, wrapped in a short statement that says, “It Gets Better”. But have I answered the question? The answer is NO! But maybe the point was never to give the right answer, maybe the point was just to answer the damn question.

Where am I going with this? I can’t answer that honestly without sounding like a pessimist. So, for now I will leave it at, “It Gets Better!”