“Things are going to get better.” -Maybe if I keep telling myself this it will come true. “Things are going to get better.” I keep repeating it, wondering if I’m just lying to myself. Am I just setting myself up for more disappointment? I mean, sure, eventually it will get better; it won’t stay like this forever. But am I going to have the worst school year of my life directly after the best summer of my life? A mosquito lands on my arm, but I don’t mind; I enjoy the company. You see, in these last couple of months I’ve been watching my teenage life crumble to pieces around me. I guess you could say that I’m the last part of it standing, but I’m not proud of that.

I decide to scribble my feelings down in a green notebook. “My friends are leaving, and now I’m alone. I’m not too happy about it…” This doesn’t seem to help; it only forces me to reflect on my situation. What the heck, the damage is already done. I keep writing. Let’s see…

“Jordan is moving away. Kory is going back to college. I’m a struggling musician who has recently found himself in a rut. Michael is going back to Arizona. Connor is going back to Montana. School is starting. Winter is coming. Times are changing. I have only one friend left.”

I’m fifteen years old. I have one friend who is attending college in California, one friend who lives with his father in Arizona, one friend who lives with his mother in Montana, and one friend who is moving 3,000 miles away. And what really kills me is the fact that I’m going to be facing the new school year and the winter -I hate the winter- all by myself. The mosquito flies away, having drunk his fill, leaving me alone again.


What else is there to say?


“Things are going to get better.” Maybe if I keep telling myself that it will come true. I did. I kept telling myself that. And much to my surprise, it came true. Friends come and go, and in the process, you find that you value the friends that stick around even more. Now, looking back at that night, when my eyes were stained with tears and I didn’t care enough to rid myself of an annoying mosquito, I realize that yes; Things got better.

And every day I keep on saying it,

“Things are going to get better.”
And they do.