Whatever Better Is

Day 201 – June 12, 2026

I keep wondering if I’m better, which is already a ridiculous question because what the fuck does better even mean? Better than yesterday? Better than six months ago? Better as in I can get through an entire afternoon without thinking about what happened? Better as in I laugh more, make plans, and can imagine a future without immediately wondering what fresh hell might be waiting inside it? If those are the measurements, then yeah. Maybe I am.

But then someone knocks on my front door and my entire body forgets what year it is. My heart starts racing before my brain has even caught up. Every muscle goes tight. I start listening for footsteps and voices and trying to figure out who is on the other side like my life depends on getting the answer right. I still have nightmares. I still fall apart in the shower sometimes, crying and scrubbing places on my body that do not need scrubbing because apparently some part of me still believes enough soap, enough water, enough pressure might erase something that cannot be washed away.

So. Better? Maybe.

I think that is the part nobody really explains about surviving something. There is not necessarily a morning when you wake up and realize you crossed some invisible finish line. Nobody hands you a certificate that says congratulations, you are officially over the terrible thing now, please collect your complimentary tote bag on the way out. At least that has not been my experience.

What has happened instead is much less dramatic. Time keeps moving, and because time keeps moving, what happened gets a little farther away. Not gone. Farther. There is a difference. The memories are not quite as loud every day. They interrupt fewer conversations. They do not hijack every quiet moment. Sometimes several hours go by and I realize I have not thought about it at all. That used to feel impossible. Now it happens without me noticing.

Maybe that is what better looks like.

Not forgetting. Not forgiving. Not pretending it did not change you. Just slowly realizing the thing that once occupied almost every inch of your mind has been forced to start sharing the space.

With work. With writing. With errands. With stupid television. With people. With plans. With Roger needing something at the exact moment I am trying to have a serious emotional breakthrough because apparently he has never once respected the significance of a moment in his entire life.

With ordinary life.

And the scars are still there. Deep ones. Some of them probably always will be. I spent a long time believing healing meant eventually reaching a point where none of it hurt anymore, and I have no idea where I got that idea. Probably from every inspirational quote ever printed over a picture of a mountain. Turns out mountains have been overselling this whole thing.

Maybe some things do not completely stop hurting. Maybe you just get better at carrying them without dropping everything else.

That realization has taken me longer than I wanted. Longer than I thought it should. Definitely longer than the imaginary version of me in my head thought was acceptable. She is very efficient, imaginary me. Excellent posture. Apparently processes trauma on a strict quarterly schedule.

Real me has been messier.

I have stalled. I have spiraled. I have let what happened eat entire days and weeks and, if we are being honest, months. I have given that man far more space inside my head than I ever wanted him to have and there is something about realizing that that makes me furious.

Because he already took enough.

He does not also get my future.

Fuck that.

I know why I have been stuck. I know what fear does. I know what trauma does. I know what it is like to have your sense of safety ripped apart and then spend months trying to figure out how to feel normal inside your own life again. I am not angry at myself for surviving badly. I do not even know what surviving well would have looked like.

But there comes a point when understanding why you are standing still does not change the fact that you are still standing still.

And I do not want to anymore.

I can keep moving forward or I can stay here. Those are the choices. Moving forward does not mean pretending I am fine. It does not mean the panic attacks vanish or the nightmares stop. It does not mean I suddenly become one of those suspiciously serene people who says everything happens for a reason while holding a mug that says BLESSED.

Absolutely not.

It just means I keep building anyway.

Slowly. Imperfectly. Sometimes angrily. Sometimes scared. Sometimes after crying in the shower, drying my hair, opening my laptop, and doing the next thing because there is still a life sitting there waiting for me.

That counts.

I think I used to imagine strength as something much more glamorous. Big declarations. Brave decisions. Standing dramatically in the rain while some emotionally manipulative song plays in the background. Real strength has turned out to be considerably less cinematic.

Sometimes strength is answering an email. Making the appointment. Walking the dog. Publishing the thing. Getting out of bed when your brain has submitted a very persuasive counterproposal. Trying again tomorrow.

It is boring as hell sometimes. But boring has started to feel pretty beautiful. Because boring means life. Normal life. My life. And lately I have started wanting more of it. Not just surviving the days. Building them.

There are things I want to write. Things I want to create. Ideas that are beginning to feel less like random things floating around my brain and more like actual possibilities. People are reading. People are noticing. Doors I did not even know existed have started cracking open.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that I am beginning to understand something I probably should have realized sooner. I am allowed to build a future while I am still healing from the past. Those two things do not have to happen in order. I do not have to finish healing before I qualify for living. Thank God, because apparently healing has absolutely no respect for deadlines.

So am I better? I still do not know. Maybe.

I know I am moving. I know I am building again. I know what happened is becoming one part of my life instead of the thing standing over all of it. I know I want more. More writing. More creating. More people. More ridiculous ideas. More mornings where the first thing I think about is what I want to make instead of what somebody did to me.

And I know one thing with absolute certainty. He does not get to win. Not because I never fall apart. Not because I stopped being afraid. Not because the scars disappeared. He does not get to win because I am still here.

And I am finally starting to build again.

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other.

And whatever the fuck better is somewhere up ahead.