It Gets Better.

My least favorite thing to hear when I was heartbroken were 3 simple words: It gets better.

I hated that. Words cannot describe how much I hated when people said that.

They weren’t in my situation. They weren’t feeling what I was feeling. Even though I knew they were probably right, it was still so frustrating. Because even if it did get better (it did) it wasn’t better now. And that’s what really mattered.

I dismissed every “it gets better” that I heard. I couldn’t see a better, so surely, this was it. I would feel horrible forever and for some reason, I was okay with that. I was okay with that because I was completely confident that I’d already had the best. That was my peak. That was my everything and now I’d lost it. It could only go downhill.

I laugh at myself for ever thinking that now.

I don’t really remember there being a strong turning point. My parents and I went to Tennessee to visit my sister for the weekend and I cried the entire trip. The entire 5 hours. Then I got there and a laid on the floor and just felt so heavy. My family was exhausted from me being like this. I was exhausted of myself. So, my mom told me to get up and we were going to do something, anything to get me out of that funk. So we did.

When we went back to Indiana, I made it a point to make as many plans as possible with friends and family. I was busy every single day.

Enough was enough. I wasn’t going to feel horrible anymore. I did everything I could to distract myself from sadness. But then I realized something profound. Something that changed everything. I was lighter. I was free. I was happy.

This was the moment I realized everyone had been right. It does get better. It doesn’t just get better in a “I learned to live with it” kind of way. It gets better in a “life is really good and I’m thankful that this is how things happened” kind of way.

Accepting that it could and should get better was a huge moment for me. I wish I could go back and tell that crying girl that the best was still coming. The sun must set to rise. I just couldn’t see that sunrise yet.

I’m sitting outside a café in downtown Indianapolis as I write this. For the first time in a long time, things just feel right in a way that I’ve yet to find the words to describe. I spent the last 2 years thinking that I had everything, that that was it. I spent a good amount of that time wondering why I wasn’t happy.

And now, finally, I understand.

It gets better. So much better. Life, living, and loving. All of it. I never thought I’d feel this simply content again. As cliché as it sounds, I had to go through what I went through to see the better. To want to the better.

Because that’s the thing. It does get better, but you have to want it to get better. You have to believe it will. You have to work for it.

Is this the person you want to be? Is this the way you want to feel? Or, can you do better? Find better? Be better?

Three months ago, I would’ve never believed you if you told me where I’d be now. I’d never believe that it got better. Not just better, but the best it’s ever been.

Don’t convince yourself that you deserve to feel awful. Don’t convince yourself that you’ve lost everything. When everything feels like it’s coming to an end, it’s really just beginning. You just can’t see it yet. I know I couldn’t.

The point is, they were right then. And I’m right now.

It. Gets. Better.