How Are You?

“So I decided … to walk around telling people the truth. No mask, no hiding, no pretending. That was going to be my thing. I was going to make people feel better about their insides by showing them mine. I’d found my thing: openness. I decided, based on firsthand experience, that is was more fun to say things that made other women feel hopeful about themselves … than it was to say or omit things to make people feel jealous of me.”

I want to adopt this excerpt from Glennon Doyle Melton’s book Carry On, Warrior as my mantra. I want it to envelop and guide me with the same quiet purpose I feel every time I read it because my world could use less judgment and more honesty.

“I decided … to walk around telling people the truth.” I want to live these words. I want to be them.

So.

How am I? Currently not your typical knee-jerk response. “Good” is a fine reply if it’s the truth, but right now my answer meets zero socially acceptable standards. For the past several weeks I’ve been crappy – emotionally exhausted and mentally overwhelmed. My insides are presently broken and messy, bits of ugly carnage searching for clarity.

How am I? I’m “I went off my medication a week ago and everything feels catastrophic, including dirty laundry and whiny toddlers and floundering blog posts like this one.” I’m “I just yelled at the three-year-old for the fourth time today because she wouldn’t nap and now I’m the one crying.” I’m “I swear to god I’ll lose it if one more person complains about the food.” I’m “irritated” and “angry” and “defeated” and “WHY CAN’T HE JUST PUT THE GODDAMN TOILET SEAT DOWN?”

There’s a tiny voice inside me that struggles to be heard during times like these. It’s calm and loving and patient and everything I wish I could’ve been when the one-year-old tracked half the sandbox into the kitchen this morning. I usually do a decent job of protecting its vulnerability but lately I’ve been its primary assailant: “What are you doing? You’re a terrible mother. You’ll ruin them. You’ve already ruined them.”

Words are the deadliest of weapons, rivaled only by truer ones.

How am I? I’m me, screwed up and scarred and shattered.

How are you?

Mask

Comments

  1. Hollie says

    I believe that if we were all as honest as you are being, then our answers would also be similar. As a mom, I’m afraid and nervous too. I don’t think our “insides” would seem so bad if we quit comparing them to the social masks surrounding us.

Leave a Reply to Hollie Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *