“It does get better.”
Someone told me that a number of years ago when I was really struggling to just slog through the day. My entire world was gray, flat, and lifeless. I could barely handle one day at a time, much less look forward to the future. But someone I knew and trusted told me that it did get better, if I just held on.
You know something?
They were right.
They were absolutely right.
Life is always going to throw curveballs at you. It is always going to be up and down. There will be good days and bad days, and you will cry and laugh and hurt and love. There will always be shadows and darkness.
But healing is possible. You just keep moving forward, one step at a time, and you’ll start to see the sunshine more often. You will begin to feel stronger. You’ll laugh more than you cry and you’ll find that the pain, once so fresh and harsh, is fading into old scars and memory. You will learn to be honest with yourself and you will learn to give yourself grace. You will start to see yourself grow.
There will still be hard times but it will be worth it.
Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer overwhelming joy of watching the sunrise, of feeding the birds, of sitting quietly and listening to the river talk. These were all things that I lost during the dark times and things that I got back as I got better. In some ways, the absence made those simple experiences more vibrant and lovely than they had seemed before.
You’re the only you that we’ve got, and you are worth waiting for. So yes, take your time. Walk through the shadows. Grieve the losses and take the time to process the trauma. Do whatever you need to in order to heal. But believe that the sunrise is coming, and the world is waiting for you. And if you can’t believe in the good in yourself and the good in the world, then I will believe in it for you until you can.
It does get better, friend. I promise. It does.
Originally posted on Facebook on March 2, 2021
So very beautiful.