“It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you have to do it every day, that’s the hard part.” ~ Bojack Horseman
If you had told eighteen-year-old me where she would be when she was twenty-eight, she would have laughed nervously and changed the subject.
That’s his move, by the way. Laugh at it. Deflect. Eat another biscuit.
She’s the girl who cried on the bathroom stall and called it “sensible.” Who said yes to everything because none seemed too dangerous. Who googled “how to be more confident” in the middle of the night and then did absolutely nothing about it.
He had plans, sure. Big, vague, terrifying plans. But mostly he had anxiety and a very unhealthy relationship with his phone.
I don’t say it to be unkind to her. I say this because I know him better than anyone. i am was his
He thought he would grow up to feel something.
Like flipping a switch. A moment later he might point out—That’s when I changed.
He was waiting for the dramatic consummation. The turning point. The wise counselor who would sit him down and explain, with great clarity, what his life meant.
Instead, he got Tuesday.
The wonderful, unexpected Tuesday where he made his bed even though no one was coming. Where he chose salad – not every time, let’s not get carried away – but sometimes. Where he answers an email he’s been avoiding for three weeks and discovers the world hasn’t ended as he feared.
No one clapped. There was no montage.
And yet, there was some movement.
The changes came so quietly that he almost missed them.
He stopped apologizing for his food orders at restaurants. Small, yes. Revolutionary to him.
He started going to the movies alone, which he once thought was the saddest thing a person could do, and discovered that it was actually wonderful. No negotiation with anyone. Popcorn yourself all. A complete emotional breakdown during the animated film entirely on its own terms.
He took a solo trip – just a weekend, nothing heroic – and spent the entire train ride believing he’d made a terrible mistake. She was not. He came home quite calmly, as if something within him had settled that he had not known was unsettled.
He learned to sit in a room without filling every silence with noise.
He learned that some friendships were seasonal, and letting them go wasn’t a failure—it was just honesty.
He learned, slowly and somewhat reluctantly, that he was allowed to take the place.
No one tells you that growing in yourself is mostly just…maintenance.
Not conversion. Not a revelation. Appearing over and over again to the small and simple act of being a person.
She almost canceled the therapy appointment. She stumbled before she could clearly state the boundaries. He wanted to forget the morning he got up and tried again later in the evening.
There was a version of her—the eighteen-year-old version, clinging to her plans—that needed growing up to look impressive. Who needed a story to tell.
What he got instead was a life worth living. Which, it turns out, is good.
Here I would tell him, if I could.
You are going to be fine. Not vaguely, but in a dismissive way people tell you this to stop worrying. In a specific, earned way—because you’ll do the work, even when it’s boring, even when no one notices, even when you’re not entirely sure it’s working.
You don’t get up one day. But you’ll wake up one day and realize that the things that once haunted you are no longer the same. It’s nothing. That’s everything, actually.
You still overthink. I won’t lie to you about that.
But you do it now with a kind of loving indignation for yourself—the way you would treat a friend who keeps making the same dear mistake. You stop fighting the way your brain works. mostly on a good day
You still don’t quite know what you’re doing. But you’ve made a kind of peace with that too.
She appeared anyway.
The girl who cried in the bathroom and googled confidence in the middle of the night and laughed too fast to cover how scared she was.
He showed Tuesdays that asked nothing of him and days that asked everything. He appeared uncertain, incomplete, still somewhat a work in progress.
And at eight, sitting here, I want him to know:
That was enough.
That was, it turns out, just enough.
about Kalyani Abhayankar
Kalyani Abhyankar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Law at Christ University with six years of teaching experience. He believes the courtroom and the written word have one thing in common – both, at their best, tell the truth. She writes to inspire, connect and remind people that growing up in silence is still important.
