“How are you?”
The dreaded question. The lethal question. The loaded emotional landmine that’s constantly strewn about. It’s asked at the grocery store, at your therapist’s office, when you bump into an old friend in the middle of a busy parking lot. Sometimes, it’s a question we’re ready for. We’ve come up with some clever, creative way to deflect what’s really going on inside, or we brace it like an aggressive bust of wind, brave and unnerved. Sometimes, we’re not so ready. It catches us off guard, sends daggers into fresh wounds, and adds another layer of confusion to our frayed, dismantled lives. “How are you” is a question with various layers, used in various situations, for various different reasons. If you’ve ever found yourself hating this question, then this post is for you.
I’ve been asked this question a lot this past year. Often from people who knew I was in the middle of a grueling, tedious diagnosis journey, but also from people who were completely unaware of the unnamed, internal battle that completely uprooted my life. I grew to loathe this question and dread those three words because I never knew the right way to respond. The people-pleaser in me was too scared to be frank about how absolutely not-fine I was, and then there were other variables such as who was asking, where we were, how much time we had to talk; I wasn’t going to unload my emotional baggage in the middle of the grocery store to a mom of an old classmate I hadn’t seen since elementary school. She had frozen peas in her cart. I had a racing heart rate and limited ability to stand. That was not the time to unpack the unraveling of my old life. That was not the time to be honest.
A lot of times, I lied about how I was doing out of the sole purpose of convenience. It’s easier to stay on the surface of feelings when time is running short, when schedules are packed and rigid, and diving down to the depths of our darkness is an activity we don’t have time for. Other times, I lied to avoid derailing the conversation, or making friends uneasy about how upset I really was. Many people don’t know what to say when the response to “How are you?” is anything less than “fine,” and I wanted to prevent the lengthy awkward pauses, the stammering and searching for words that come when people grow uncomfortable. I was tired of my reality making people uncomfortable. So at some point, I locked the truth away. I stuffed it into the bottom of a drawer like a ratty old t-shirt, unfit to wear in public.
Sometimes I did try to be honest. I tried to tell my friends and family how hard it was to be at home, debilitated and overwhelmbed by an illness that at this point, was still unnamed. I tried to tell them how envious I was of other people who were still at school, living the life I wanted, and how difficult it was to watch the world go on without me. Sometimes my candor would open up the conversation, allowing a deeper connection to take place between us. But many times, especially with young people, I found they would freeze up, starkly unequipped to deal with these kinds of heavy conversations. My young college friends offered support and encouragement in the ways they knew how, and while their kindness and compassion deeply touched me, they usually didn’t have the life experience to fully understand and many of them felt pressure to know the exact, right things to say.
I wish I would’ve told them that I never needed a perfect, comforting response. I wish I would’ve told them that it wasn’t advice or encouraging pinterest quotes I was looking for, but someone who would show up, who would weather the storms with me and speak honestly about what they couldn’t understand. I didn’t need my friend to be my therapist, I already had one of those and a great one, in fact. I didn’t need to be told “everything happens for a reason”, and I also didn’t need constant reassurance that everything was going to be okay. Somehow, I had quiet hope that everything would eventually work out (emphasis on eventually…), it was just buried underneath mountains of grief and hurt and anger and exhaustion. I didn’t need someone to fix my problems (though that would’ve been nice…), I just needed a friend to help me ride the waves.
Somewhere along the path of constant “How are you?” and “How have you been?” questions, I started to cling to the response of “hanging in there.” To me, it was like a neutral, meet-in-the-middle kind of answer; an optimistic reply that would assure my friends I wasn’t falling into a massive, black pit of despair. It wouldn’t cause the blunt discomfort the response, “absolutely, utterly terrible” would create, and it was also kind of halfway true, so it wouldn’t be considered a flat-out lie. And so it became my go-to. I used it at the grocery store, I used it on texts from friends at college, and I used it on distant family members, careful not to cause any unnecessary worry about my progressively worsening, undiagnosed medical condition. It was safe, it was easy, but it was actually still a lie. Looking back, I despise those three words now. I wasn’t “hanging in there,” I was hanging by a thread, and hardly, at that.
While I understand my motives and am aware of the sometimes necessary convenience of the typical “fine” response, I regret not being more honest when people asked me “How are you?” I used “hanging in there” like it was a synonym for “barely holding on.” I clung to the phrase like it was a state of being I could reach, if I just said it often enough. But “hanging in there” is not for when an illness uproots and derails your life. “Hanging in there” is for twiddling your thumbs as your dinner heats up, or waiting a week and a half for your online shopping order to be delivered. As much as I tried to deny it, “hanging in there” was a lie, and one I still regret to this day.
So how am I now? I’m a bit of a mix between restless and hopeful. Somewhere in between frustrated and okay. I jump between these like a ping pong ball, never quite landing in one, but not getting stuck in one either. I still haven’t mastered the loaded “How are you?” question, and I often find myself jumping to the “I’m good!” response a little too soon. But I’m learning. I’m making room for not being okay, and letting go of expectations of what that’s “supposed” to look like.
And what about you? Are you “fine?” Are you “hanging in there?” Or are you absolutely positively terrible, taking your days breath by breath and hour by hour? We’re living in unprecedented times, and that can bring unprecedented feelings. But I urge you to invite it all in, to reject the convenient, comfortable answers. I urge you to have those hard, heavy, honest conversations because frankly, now we’ve got nothin’ but time.