Fine

Have you ever had someone ask you how you are and you responded with, "I'm fine..."? It's a pretty generic way to describe your feelings don't you think? If you are in a bad mood or something bad happens, you don't wanna say, "crappy, I hate life." That is too unsettling. And if you are ecstatic, very rarely do you say, "I am just ecstatic." It's too braggy. So I guess really my question is, how many of us say we are fine, and actually mean it?

When we are hurting, it is easier to brush questions like "How are you?" with said response. And let's be honest, for most of us, when we ask a friend or coworker how they are, we aren't looking for their life story. A short answer would suffice. I mean if I were asking, I would not want to hear about so and so's dog dying, their test going badly, or that their boyfriend/spouse is upset at them again. No one wants to know the hard things that are going on in your life, no that is too depressing. No one likes to be around depressed people. Depression is contagious, as is almost any other emotion. Therefore, we choose to spare the ugly details of what's really going on in our lives, and cling to the happy highlights of someone else's life, until we can form our own.

So what if you don't have any happy highlights to share? What if you are going through the hardest of times and the only adequate response to choose besides bursting into tears is "I'm Fine." I can say from experience, that sometimes the only thing that saves me from breaking down is to respond quickly with "I'm fine" and then change the subject. It's too hard to think about everything going wrong. It's too hard to think about what you had, or what you want again. It's too hard to tell everyone that you have no idea where to go from here. So "I'm Fine" will suffice for now. What more can you say?


P.S. This is not supposed to be depressing, I promise that despite all that's happening with me lately, I am happy. It's just something I was thinking about.