Me, My Life & Why Part 19

Part 19: “You Seem Better Now”

“You seem better now,” my aunt said, in that tone people use when they’re trying to sound kind but still need you to know how hard you were to deal with.

We were standing in her kitchen. She was cutting strawberries into exact, symmetrical halves, like a person with a Pinterest board for every season. I was eating cereal out of a mug and wearing socks that didn’t match. I hadn’t intended to have this conversation. I’d come over to drop off a charger I borrowed in 2019.

I smiled. Because that’s what you do, right?

When someone thinks they’re complimenting you, you smile.

Even if what they’re really saying is, “You’re easier now. More palatable. Less inconvenient.”

I didn’t respond straight away. I let the compliment hang in the air like the smell of her expensive shampoo, thick and sweet and oddly artificial.

“Better how?” I asked eventually, light but pointed.

She blinked, thrown. “I don’t know. You just seem… less chaotic.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw the charger across the room and yell, “Do you think I wanted to be chaotic? Do you think I liked having a thousand tabs open in my brain and no ability to prioritise toothpaste over existential dread?”

But I just nodded. “Mm.”

That’s the thing. No one ever tells you that healing doesn’t look like a before-and-after photo. It doesn’t come with a neat caption or a glow-up montage. Sometimes it’s just not crying when you miss the bus. Sometimes it’s taking a full breath before you answer a text.

I’m not “better.”

I’m just not pretending anymore.

I still forget things - birthdays, emails, why I walked into the kitchen.

I still get overwhelmed in supermarkets and cry at bad movies and sleep at objectively terrible hours.

But I’ve stopped apologising for it. That’s the difference.

And I’ve stopped trying to fix myself to meet standards that never accounted for brains like mine in the first place.

There’s a kind of freedom in saying, actually, no, I don’t have to optimise my morning routine. I can just wake up when my body’s done sleeping. Radical, I know.

She was still looking at me like I’d been upgraded. Like I’d downloaded some new emotional firmware.

I wanted to explain it to her.

How the peace didn’t come from productivity.

How “better” isn’t a finish line, it’s a truce.

How maybe I’ve just finally stopped performing an identity I was never meant to audition for.

But she was back to slicing strawberries.

Instead, I said, “Thanks. I’m figuring things out.”

Which is code for:

I’m free.

And fragile.

And raw as hell.

And I’ve never felt more real in my life.

And maybe I’l be l always feel a little out of sync at gatherings.

Maybe I’ll always forget to RSVP, or bring the wrong thing to a potluck, or show up mentally foggy on the days that matter.

But I’m not trying to outrun myself anymore. And that counts for something.

When I left, she hugged me too tight and told me to “keep it up.” Like I was on a treadmill.

I didn’t correct her.

Didn’t explain that I’d stopped running.

I walked home in the late afternoon sun, the kind that makes everything look just a little more cinematic than it is.

And I thought, maybe I’m not better. Maybe I’m just finally okay with being me.

Which, honestly, feels like the first real upgrade I’ve ever made.