What if this is the best it ever gets?
Not in a doom and gloom, throw in the towel kind of way… but in the shaky exhale, slow blink, quiet acceptance kind of way. People love to say “it gets better,” and maybe that’s true. Or maybe “better” is just code for learning to live with it.
It being… this gnawing sadness.
This manic thunderstorm of thoughts.
This weight I carry that sometimes feels like a lead vest and other times like a second skin.
What if this… right here, right now, is it? This messy, contradictory, emotionally tangled version of my life. The one where I cry in parking lots but also dance in the kitchen. The one where my heart feels too big and too tired all at once. The one where I can’t always tell if I’m spiraling or healing or just really, really bored.
What if I make it to my 80s, wrinkled and wise and hopefully still a little inappropriate, and I look back on this time… as the best time of my life?
What if this is the heaven that people talk about in scripture or poetry or those cryptic Instagram captions over blurry sunset photos?
What if we were never promised more than this?
What if this life is just… what we make of it?
No cosmic reset. No golden afterlife. No next level.
Just this…
the now,
the real,
the raw,
the ridiculous.
What if the only “meaning” is the one we build ourselves, out of dog hair on the couch and conversations at midnight and rollerblades on a weekday? What if I stop waiting for the fog to lift and just decide to dance in it? What if instead of trying to escape my lows, I learned to sit with them, offer them tea, and gently remind them who’s steering?
What if this is my only chance to live a great life?
And instead of wasting it on maybe-one-days or endless self-doubt or comparing my insides to someone else’s carefully curated outsides, I chose this moment, this exact version of me, and said:
Yes. Him. He’s worth building something for.
It sounds sad, maybe. But to me, it’s not.
It’s exhilarating.
Because if this is it,
then I get to choose how I show up.
I get to chase the joy.
I get to write the meaning into the margins.
This is the best day I’ve ever had because I’m in it.
And I’m not going anywhere.
I’ll find the good.
I’ll make it great.
I have no other choice.
And honestly, I wouldn’t want one.