Why Can't We "Get Over It"?
Skip the work,claim the result
Whether it is a family member, friend, partner, or someone on the internet, it never fails that the question, “Why can’t we just get over it?“ comes up. They’re not reaching for unity. They’re uncomfortable and want that discomfort to go away and for everything to be “fine“ again. They want to return to a mindset where the past stops mattering simply because they’re tired of carrying it.
But that question isn’t neutral. It’s a wish for the ending without the plot, for harmony without repair, for an epilogue without writing the chapters in between. This is the American habit: to desire the benefits of justice, but to resist the cost of creating it.
I. The Fantasy of the Skip Button
“Getting over it” promises a world where the wounds become memory—boxed and stored in the attic—rather than raw, scarred and infected. It’s Adam Sandler in Click, skipping the parts of his life he deemed uninteresting, inconvenient, or uncomfortable, choosing instead a sanitized existence where struggle gets erased. (that scene with his dad still hits hard.) The film reminds us of the emotional fallout that comes from fast-forwarding through the moments that shape us, leaving us robbed of connections and lessons that only time and difficulty can teach.
But this notion exists only for people privileged enough to step away from the rubble. For many, the debris of past traumas and injustice ever-present—a reminder of unresolved harm that refuses to be silenced. The desire to “move on”is often a wish to bypass the necessary, sometimes painful work of healing. It assumes everyone has the same capacity, or luxury, to forget and forge ahead.
The truth is, “moving on” doesn’t obligate anyone else to do the same. A system—whether societal, institutional, or relational does not change simply because a conversation becomes uncomfortable. Harm does not evaporate because one person is eager to shift the focus or escape accountability.
Acknowledging and confronting these deeper truths may be difficult, but it is essential. Healing requires engagement, empathy, and the courage to face not only our own discomfort, but the discomfort of those whose experiences show that moving forward is not an option for everyone. This is especially true for those still navigating the aftermath of harm.
True peace and resolution come not from avoidance, but from facing the past head-on and doing the work needed to build a future rooted in understanding, equity, and justice for all.
II. What Moving On Actually Requires
If we’re going to deal with harm, we have to say what actually happened. Not the polite version. Not the “it wasn’t that bad” version. The real version. What was done, who did it, and how it landed. Most people don’t like that part—you can feel the room tense up the second you get specific. But that’s the only way any of this starts. If we can’t say the truth out loud, then we’re just pretending.
When we name the harm, we make space for accountability. Recognition is the first real step toward repair. Without it, conversations about change drift into vague territory—lots of words, no weight. Being direct about what happened keeps us from dodging the core issue and lets people actually talk to one another instead of talking around it.
Naming things clearly also gives communities power. The truth, once it’s out there, isn’t this cloudy “maybe” anymore—it’s a thing you can point at. People can gather around it, argue with it, build from it. It’s a place to start, rather than everyone guessing in different directions. And once you’re standing on that solid ground, you can finally push for something better.
But saying the truth out loud also means looking at our own part in it—what we did, what we ignored, what we let slide, and the systems that made it possible in the first place. It’s not pretty, but it’s necessary.
And understanding the impact matters just as much. Harm doesn’t just sit where it lands. It leaks. It shows up in people’s relationships, in the choices they make, in the opportunities they never even had a shot at. Sometimes whole neighborhoods end up carrying weight that other people don’t even notice.
And saying “that was a long time ago” doesn’t wipe any of that away. That’s just avoiding the mess. And when we avoid it, the wound keeps bleeding.
Then there’s the part everyone claims they’re ready for—fixing it. “Repair.” Sounds great until it’s time to actually do anything. Real repair is work. It’s showing up. It’s closing the distance from the harm created; however, that needs to happen. Sometimes it’s money. Sometimes it’s time. Sometimes it’s rebuilding trust inch by inch. Whatever it is, it’s more than words. Words are the easy part.
We also have to change whatever conditions made the harm possible in the first place. If we don’t, the same thing will happen again under a new name or a nicer excuse. That means looking at structures, habits, power dynamics—all the uncomfortable stuff that’s easy to ignore when it benefits us. This part is hard because it forces people to hold a mirror up to themselves, and not everyone likes what they see. But without this step, nothing really changes.
And yeah, this is the part everyone tries to skip. Not because it can’t be done, but because it demands things people don’t like to touch—owning what we did, sitting with the fact that someone got hurt, actually changing how we show up next time. That stuff is uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable. It’s real.
But if we dodge it, the harm doesn’t just keep going—it gets worse. It settles in. It grows roots.
In the end, “moving forward” isn’t something you call out loud and make accurate. You build it. Piece by piece. It takes time, and it takes people who don’t bail the second things get uncomfortable, weird, or slow. It’s messy most of the way through. Progress never runs in a straight line, but if you keep showing up and doing the work, it shifts. You feel it. Things start to move.
III. Why People Try to Rush the Process
There’s a reason folks keep saying “move on” like it’s a magic spell.
It’s easier than sitting with the truth.
People rush the process because the real work asks things from them—things they don’t want to give. It asks them to feel uncomfortable on purpose. It asks them to look at themselves, not just “the situation.” It asks them to admit that something they did or benefited from came at somebody else’s expense.
That’s not a fun mirror to stand in front of.
So instead of doing the slow, messy work, people try shortcuts.
They change the subject.
They talk about “tone.”
They say, “It’s in the past.”
Anything to avoid the weight of the actual conversation.
And underneath all of it is fear—fear of being wrong, fear of losing something, fear of what accountability might actually look like. Because once you admit harm happened, you can’t un-know it. You can’t go back to pretending everything was fine. Now there’s something to fix. And fixing it means stepping into work that isn’t quick or pretty.
So people rush. They push for closure before the story is even told. They want forgiveness without repair, peace without effort, healing without change.
But rushing doesn’t make anything faster.
It just makes it shallow.
And when healing is shallow, harm always finds a way back through the cracks.
IV. What “Moving Forward” Actually Looks Like
Here’s the hard truth: moving forward isn’t a moment. It’s not a sentence. It’s not a speech or a promise or a “let’s put this behind us.”
Moving forward is a practice—something you do over and over until the ground starts to shift.
Most of it isn’t glamorous. It’s not even satisfying at first. It’s long stretches of work where it feels like nothing is happening, but something is—the foundation is changing.
Real moving forward looks like:
Showing up even when the conversation is uncomfortable.
Listening without jumping to defend yourself.
Changing your behavior even when no one is watching.
Following through on the things you said you’d do.
Fixing what you can fix and not pretending the rest didn’t happen.
Letting go of the shortcuts — the ones that make you feel better but leave the other person holding the bag.
Most of all, it looks slow. It looks humble. It looks like a hundred small choices that add up to something real.
And the thing people forget is this: moving forward isn’t supposed to feel good right away. There’s a stretch where it feels worse. You’re sitting with things you didn’t want to face, doing work you wish you’d done earlier, trying to rebuild something you broke or ignored. It’s awkward. It’s messy. It’s uneven.
But that’s how you know you’re in the right place—discomfort means you’re not pretending anymore.
And over time, if you stay with it, the ground does start to change. The conversations hit differently. The tension eases. Trust comes back in small pieces. The future stops feeling like something you have to tiptoe around.
You don’t “move on.”
You move through.
And that’s what makes the movement real.
V. Bringing It All Together
When people say “let’s just get over it,” what they’re really asking for is an ending without doing any of the middle. They want the shortcut. They want the skip button. They want the story to wrap up clean because sitting with the mess feels like too much.
But we’ve walked through what actually has to happen:
Naming the harm, feeling the impact of it, repairing what was broken, and changing the conditions that let it happen in the first place. None of that fits in a neat little moment you can fast-forward through. It’s slow. It’s uncomfortable. It’s work.
And that’s the real reason people push so hard to “move on”—not because things are fixed, but because the fixing asks something from them. It costs something. It asks for honesty, for repair, for accountability, for change. It asks us to grow up a little.
There’s no clean exit ramp from harm. There’s only doing the work or pretending the work doesn’t exist. And pretending has gotten us exactly nowhere.
Moving forward isn’t magic. It’s not a feeling you can declare and hope the rest falls in line. It’s a set of choices, repeated over and over, until something finally shifts.
And here’s the thing most people miss: once the work actually starts, once people stop dodging the truth and start dealing with it, the path there isn’t as impossible as it seemed. The fear shrinks. The fog lifts. The pieces start to fit. Not perfectly. Not all at once. But steadily, in that slow way real change always arrives.
We don’t get better by skipping the hard parts.
We get better by going through them—fully, honestly, together.
That’s the only version of “moving on” that means anything.
🪢