it’s gonna be all right
tom odell, frisson, and perseverance
Lately I’ve been obsessing over Best Day of My Life by Tom Odell.
Well, that is since the other day when I bumped into a Heartstopper post on Instagram that had the song added to it.
For those not aware, Heartstopper is a UK Netflix series adapted from a graphic novel by Alice Oseman. It features a lineup of queer characters who are working through the challenges of what it means to grow up, fall in love, and explore who they really are. It honestly was one of the most important pieces of media that I consumed back a few months ago that helped me let go of the egregious demonisation of queer people and queer relationships.
But back to the song by Tom Odell.
I’ve listened to it a number of times, like seven or more at this point over the past few days, but the lyrics speak to me in such a profound and relatable way. Every time I’ve listened to it, I get goosebumps and chills (a phenomenon known as frisson) – like in a good and pleasant way.
The song is so tender and gentle. I like to imagine that the different pieces of the lyrics represent different scenes from my life.
I think today is the best day of my life
Gonna rent a bicycle and ride around the city
Around the city from nine 'til five
I remember, almost vividly, being a child and just being able to ride around on my bike all over the farm. Being young was good and free. There wasn’t any pressure to be a certain way; there weren’t expectations to meet. There was just being able to let one’s mind run free and to enjoy everything in God’s creation.
It sucks that boys are forced into boxes as they grow up. You have to be tough. You can’t be soft. You can’t be weak. You can’t be vulnerable. You’re expected to swallow your feelings and to deny your creativity in the name of ‘masculinity ’ - whatever that is.
It sucks that girls are also forced into boxes growing up. They have to be perfect. They are forced into modesty because men can’t take responsibility for their perversion. They are told that they’re sensitive and weak. They are told that they are less than men. They’re told to deny their strength in the name of ‘femininity’ - whatever that is.
The more I think about it, the more I realise why Christ admonishes us to be like little children. There’s so much messaging in internet culture around ‘becoming the best version of ourselves’ or, as my generation might say, ‘auramaxxing.’
When we were children, we were already the best version of ourselves. We were the kindest, most creative, most loving, most trusting, most caring, freest people we’ve ever been. But people abused our kindness. People called our creativity incoherent. People called our love innocent. People abused our trust. We were enslaved to what we were forced into conforming to be, and did it out of survival for fear that it would only get worse if we didn’t.
But as an adult, I still aspire to hold onto the tenderness of myself as a child. I may not be the same. I may have been crushed by the people I trusted and looked up to, but I don’t have to be like them. I’m so hopeful that my generation continues to break this cycle. We’re all just kids after all. Children in ageing bodies.
I think today is the best day of my life
F*** thinking about the future all the time
If I'm alone, I'm alone, and I don't mind
We live in a world of worry. We’re told to worry about our future. Will we be able to make it? Will we survive? Will we have enough money to have all that we dreamed of? Or will we end up on the wayside, stuck, poor, miserable, left behind, and lonely?
We live in a world of FOMO (fear of missing out). We don’t tend to write our own stories, but we always worry that we’re being left out. We worry that we’re not ‘cool enough’ and that we have to edit ourselves to be loved. That’s the way that the world treats love – like it’s transactional. ‘I’ll only love you as long as it benefits me.’ But that’s not what love is really like, because love shows up whether it feels sublime to love or hurts really bad to love.
So f*** thinking about the future all the time. F*** worrying about what everyone else thinks. F*** anything that keeps us from living as our most authentic versions of ourselves.
I think today is the best day of my life
Saw a billboard, it said something like
Everything, everything is gonna be alright
There are these stickers that I’ve seen posted around on signs and other permanent fixtures that are beside the sidewalk in Mankato. Most of them I’ve seen around campus. I often nod at them while walking by. They’re really quite simple, but they give me a sense of calm every time I read the words on them and internalise them.
The stickers are black with white letters, with the phrase ‘IT’S GOING TO BE OK’ on them.
But really, it’s gonna be all right.
People can be, well, people. We can be left behind in the dust. We can feel all alone. We can feel like nobody cares.
But does it really matter? Not really.
No matter what comes our way, we’ll come out on the other side, and we’ll be so glad that we held on. That we kept going. That we persevered.
Some days aren’t great sometimes, but most days are at least okay. Even then, our moments of despair are incomparable to the moments of clarity when everything makes sense. The moments when we realise how much we matter and how much we mean to other people in the world around us. You and I are indispensable. There is no one else like us.
My generation can get so stuck on chasing highs and validation. We’ve been taught that once we ‘have enough’, we’ll finally actually be happy. Yet that is a mountain of indefinite scale. There is no top; there’s just rock bottom.
The best realisation that we can hold to is that we already are enough just the way we are. That we don’t have to change ourselves to become more likeable or lovable. That who we are and who we’ve become, despite the daily battles and struggles, is something to embrace and to celebrate.
We can’t ‘have enough’ when we already are enough.
And with God holding the whole world together in his hands, we are truly going to be okay.
“Do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be afraid, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you; I will help you;
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”
(Isaiah 41:10, NRSVue)
I think today is the best day of my life
My [friends] looked worried and asked me why?
But I don't know, I don't know, so I didn't reply
Sometimes I get asked why I smile so much. Sometimes I get asked how I can smile that much. I work on frontend (currently) at Walmart, and I had a coworker from another department ask how I kept it all together and how I was able to keep smiling, especially when having to work with all types of customers, many of whom are irritable, upset, or just plain pessimistic. It can be easy to drown in all of that, I’ll admit (which is why I’m planning on switching departments for my own good).
Sometimes I don’t even know why I tend to be a bright and happy person. I think it’s contrary to my nature not to be.
But with everything that’s happened in my life, it’s been rough.
My family walked away from me when I came out. Some of my closest friends have been lacklustre or completely unsupportive. I got slammed into by a car a few months ago. I struggled with intense anxiety and depression as I tried to work through the grief of what felt like my whole world falling apart.
And yet on the days I was still able to actually get out of bed, I smiled. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but maybe that doesn’t matter. What matters is that life wasn’t a total loss. There was still room for positivity in the pain.
However, there were also those days in which I smiled to mask the pain that I felt underneath. Whether it’s healthy or not, I tend to smile or laugh nervously when sharing bad news because that’s how I tend to cope with it. But to a certain degree, there have been times when I had to laugh things off, or else I would have broken down so frequently that I don’t know how I would’ve managed to recover from that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still cried plenty too. Sometimes silently tearing up when the weight of it all ends up crushing me. Sometimes sobbing because I can’t hold it in anymore. Sometimes with tears pouring out in anger, wondering why life has to be so difficult. I’ve experienced the full range of human emotion, whether for worse or for better.
But maybe positivity doesn’t always need a reason. Maybe positivity can be there to mask the pain when it’s too sharp to feel. Maybe we can smile, even when we hold so much uncertainty inside, because maybe we can be certain that it will actually be okay. That our pain doesn’t last forever. That everything is going to be all right.
Laying on the car
You've got stars
I've got scars
They don't see
Still, on the note of masking pain, sometimes we have no clue what people are going through. Sometimes, it’s so hard to convey the full weight of the pain that we go through that we hide our scars.
We all have things that have wounded us and that have become scars on the person that we are. Often those scars can be the very reason that we continue to count ourselves out of things. To stare at life from the sidelines, hoping that maybe somebody will choose us and love us just the way we are.
Truth is, we see everyone’s ‘stars.’ We see the most perfect, edited, and shallow version of them and we’re told that no one will love us if we’re vulnerable and known on a deeper level. That people will take advantage of us if we open up and let them carry our burdens with us. Social media has exacerbated this. It’s both easy and detrimental to compare ourselves to the most perfect version that people display for the entire world to see.
And maybe some people do exploit others’ vulnerability, but I would guess that most people find it comforting. It’s easier to trust someone who trusts us enough that they’d share the innermost parts of themselves that they tend to hide from the rest of the world.
We don’t have to hide our scars, though. Our scars don’t make us less desirable; they make us the resilient people we are. They show the world that we made it through another day and kept living anyway. Maybe our scars are actually really the ‘stars’ that we should see in ourselves. Maybe they should be the reason that we keep shining and showing up every day.
Think today is the best day of my life
Last night all I wanted to do was die
Right now I'm just happy to be alive
There have been multiple instances where this has happened in my life. The jarring contrast between feeling at rock bottom and returning to a desire to live. Going from feeling completely depressed and hopeless to being happy and hopeful.
Suicide is no joke. And wanting to die even without having any desire to actually attempt is still a terrible place to be in. It was a place that I was in for months, maybe even years at this point. I understandably haven’t kept track.
Queer individuals like myself are disproportionately affected by these thoughts. We’re three to six times more likely to struggle with suicidal ideation, and queer youth are four times more likely to attempt than our cisgender, heterosexual peers.
But despair is a human problem. It’s something we all struggle with, and it sucks.
As someone who has struggled with suicidal ideation, and still does to a much lesser degree, I can’t emphasise how much you do matter and how your suffering doesn’t define your worth as a human being. I can’t emphasise how much you belong in this world. I can’t emphasise how much you deserve to be loved. I can’t emphasise how true it is that tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and your life in the future will get better. Your pain is not permanent. You belong in this world, and you are loved.
It’s gonna be all right.
If you struggle with suicidal thoughts or have ever felt helpless, you don’t have to fight this alone. There are people willing to talk to you and help you get through this. Seeking help is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.
If you or somebody you know is struggling, don’t hesitate to call or text the national suicide hotline (988). If you or somebody you know is queer and struggling with their mental health, get in touch with a counsellor at The Trevor Project (thetrevorproject.org) by texting 678-678 or calling 1-866-488-7386.
Finally, if you’re ever struggling and need some encouragement, there’s an awesome project started in the UK called Reasons To Stay, which is a website featuring letters from people who care and want to see you choose to stay. You matter, and there are so many more reasons to stay than reasons to not. Read them over at reasonstostay.org.
Keep yourself safe, and remember to show yourself love and compassion.
P.S. – I listen to a lot of music, btw. If you’re curious what I’m listening to or what I’ve listened to, check out my profile on last.fm or Airbuds, or follow me on Apple Music.
Also, if you’re interested in listening to Best Day of My Life by Tom Odell, here it is on Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube. ✌🏼