it'll be all right

You hear the phrase, and you want to believe it. "It'll be all right." Or perhaps the slightly more formal and more assertive "It will be all right." The lack of a contraction adds a dollop of gravitas to the remark. It's not simply a remark; it's a sentence, not as in a judicial punishment but grammatically. It nearly takes the stance of a command, an imperative sentence, but then you would need "you," understood, as the subject: "Be all right." That's an entirely different flavor, isn't it? Even though that formulation is a command, it carries less weight, less force, than "It'll be all right." The phrase exudes hope; it's a declaration of faith that something will turn out okay, whatever that may mean. Yes, you want to believe it when they say it to you. But such faith, belief, credence, or acceptance is not based merely on the words. The words are the least of it. What matters more is who is saying it and how they are saying it. You therefore weigh a bushel of considerations: is this person prone to bromides or platitudes? Is it just a well-meaning but vacant wish? Is it even less than that, merely something to say, to fill the air, or a putative palliative that even the speaker does not believe? Or does the proclaimer of "It'll be all right" have a history, a solid back story you can grasp, a redemptive tale that gives you the hope that's intended? You smell that hope in the air after they say it. They say it breezily but with a substratum of insouciant certitude. You also wonder what elicited the plethora of "It'll be all right"s. You did not expect that the plight you described would come off so melodramatically, evoking so many "It will be all right"s or its variations. Now you wonder if you were laying it on with a trowel. And you fear you were seeking attention more than solace and strength. True, you had to fight off the knee-jerk: "How can you say that?" Or "Really? What makes you think so?" Or the flat-out "I don't think so; I doubt that." You could say that the "it" in "It'll be all right" is the fulcrum, the pivot, for all that follows, both for them and for you. Are there configurations of "it" that can never be all right, or is that a matter of perspective, attitude, faith, disposition, hope, or their opposites? You wonder what you would feel if your plight was received with no one saying "It'll be all right," a stony silence or a bounteous wordlessness, take your pick. And, c'mon, what's with this "plight"? You concede that word may be too freighted with danger, risk, and threat. But what choice did you have? How else would you term your condition, circumstance, or conjecture? You hear another "It'll be all right," a familiar ring to it now, like an echo in a canyon, and you are tempted to blurt out "But it is all right!" but you resist the impulse because you don't want to come off as a wiseguy, a flippant and cavalier contrarian. Instead, you find yourself repeating it, to your surprise. "It'll be all right," not audibly, more a mumble. You, of all people, don't know what this means or what to make of it. "It will be all right," they said and are still saying. You suspect you are right back where you started, but infinitely not. You don't mind. You're willing to wait to find out.