Moral of the Story

Emotions are present in everyone and play a part in every human interaction. You are happy when you see a close friend for the first time after a while, you are anxious when you have to do something that’s outside of your comfort zone, you are angry when someone you trusted hurts you.

No matter who you are and what you do, emotions are there. Sometimes you feel them only very faintly, like mild annoyance when your partner is a few minutes late. Other times however, emotions can be intense, like a raging storm that completely overwhelms you without a way to escape. And believe me, I know what I’m talking about.

As a twenty-year old college student who is in a time of abrupt and heavy change in her life and who gets anxious on a daily basis, everything feels like it is too much sometimes. Even one emotion at a time can be a lot, but when happiness, anxiety, anger, sadness, frustration and restlessness all occur in the same week on separate occasions, this cocktail of emotions feels strong enough to knock me out (metaphorically of course).

But regardless of what time in your life you’re in right now, life can be overwhelming sometimes. And the time we’re in generally feels like it is heavy with different emotions, with news about tragedy everywhere you look, a pandemic that just won’t leave, inflation and any other crisis that you can think of.

But the message I want to give with this story collection is: It will get better. Everything you’re going through and all of the emotions that are threatening to pull you under and drown you will get better. I can’t promise that it will be soon and I can’t promise that the journey will be easy, but don’t give up hope. It will get easier.

You might not be able to relate to this message, maybe your life is great right now and has always been as close to perfect as possible. Then I am truly happy for you and I urge you to be grateful for the life you have and the people that are in it.

But if there’s someone who needs to hear this, someone who is struggling right now, I want to make this clear: Don’t give up hope, it will get better. And try to be gentle with yourself. You’re doing the best you can and it’s okay not to be okay.