A Long Answer to "How Are You?"

Lately, I've been thinking about how often people ask, "How are you?"

It's one of those questions we ask almost automatically. In passing at work. At the grocery store. Through text messages. At family gatherings. And almost every time, I answer the same way:

"I'm fine."

Sometimes I say it with a smile. The truth is, "fine" has become one of the most flexible words in my vocabulary. It can mean a variety of things, such as..

I'm tired.

I’m doing my best.

I'm grieving.

I’m a little less than good, but a little better than bad.

I'm hopeful.

I'm having a good day, but also a hard day.

I don't know how to explain what I'm feeling.

I don't have the energy to explain what I'm feeling.

I don't want to cry here.

I don't want to make you uncomfortable.

I don't want to become the person who is always carrying around sadness.

The truth is that I am fine… and I am also not fine. Luckily I know that two things can be true at the same time.

I can laugh with friends and still miss someone who I never knew. I can celebrate someone else's joy while still holding my own sadness. I can be healing simultaneously hurting. I can be okay and not okay all at once.

Maybe that's why "How are you?" has become such a difficult question to answer, because there isn't just one answer anymore. The long answer is that I am learning to live with contradictions. I am continuously learning that grief, big or small, does not move in a straight line. Neither does healing.

Some days I do feel like myself again while other days, it takes a little more umph, and some days I feel like a stranger in my own life. Some days I wake up and think, I'm getting better. Other days I realize I have simply gotten better at carrying it all.

So if you've asked me how I am lately and I've said, "I'm fine," please know that I wasn't lying. I was simply giving you the shortest answer to a very long story.