"Just get OVER it."

I hear that phrase a lot. Sometimes I hear it on TV or out in public. Sometimes people say it with actions or using other words. Sometimes I say it to myself.

I used to think I was SO over the whole concept of getting over it. I had figured out that you don't magically get over things, you work through them. But then, then you are OVER them. I guess there's a difference there but I wonder now how much. Now I'm starting to question if we really get over things at all.

It seems to me that the people who say "Get over it" the most, are often the ones who seem the least over their own stuff. How many times have I met an adult who was highly functioning according to society's standards (good job, high income) but who acted totally fucking crazy? And not good crazy, but bad crazy and I know you know what I mean. When I look at my own adult life the craziest times, the actions or behaviours I regret the most were during times when I was trying really fucking hard to get over it. I would say that during those times I was about the furthest away from getting over it as I can imagine myself.

But now that I have the truth and the truth is about working through it, I am again starting to question my tactics. I still believe in working through things because I can see the difference it has made and continues to make in my life. But sometimes I am shocked and disturbed by how much some things can still hurt me -- how far away I am from being over it. I realize now that I have still been carrying that message inside me, putting pressure on myself every day to get over it -- thinking all the while that some day, some glorious day, I will finally be over it. Hallelujah!

I wonder now if maybe we change our relationship to painful events but we never really get over them. Maybe certain things will always hurt, and maybe THAT is normal and healthy. Maybe recognizing that something hurts and acknowledging it, even when you've worked through it, AND even when you think you should be totally fucking over it already... maybe that is what getting over something really means.

Whenever I think about this stuff I always think back to the story called "Resilience" in Lynda Barry's "One Hundred Demons" because she says it so perfectly.