I Am Fine With Not Being Fine And Believe Me, That’s Okay!

As an overweight child and teenager, I would always say to anyone who asked me how I was, that "I am fine." But was I really fine?

She goes through the day, sifting through her struggles, but if you ask her she says- “I am fine.”

She wakes up each morning and runs her hands across her belly just to be sure that it wasn’t all a dream, but if you ask her she says- “I am fine.”

She logs in on her laptop and does her work well but she avoids that one, which she feels she is running from for a while, but if you ask her she says the same!

She is like you & me!

She is there for everyone and plays her role extremely well despite wanting to not be present at all, but if you ask her she says- “I am fine.”

She is like you and me.

The blanket response to the most asked question of “how are you doing?”

Is always-

“I am fine.”

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For me, this response has meant so much in so many different scenarios.

It has been a saviour in times I didn’t want to share the real picture with anyone.

It has been the mantra I use to make myself motivated and positive.

It has been a lie I tell myself often.

Times I felt ‘not fine’

Times I felt ‘not fine’, are the actual moments I needed to address the feeling I have, that screams and tells me that I need to stop and look at what’s not fine in me.

The magic trick of making myself believe I am fine has been an age-old tradition of mine.

As an overweight child and teenager, I would always say to anyone who asked me how I was, that “I am fine.” When in reality, I felt the strong emotion of eating everything and anything I could get my hands on. All the while telling myself that I am fine!

4 cupcakes & happiness

Once I have eaten 4 cupcakes I will feel happy. That never happened. But I was always “fine.”

As an unhappy adult in my 20s, for a lot of reasons that life weighed heavily on me, I would always say I was fine but would eventually hide behind spending sprees and adventurous outings. Somehow it never made me feel better.

After years I realised that I couldn’t run from my feelings and manipulate myself into feeling something else. I had to sit with them. Acknowledge them.

I am not fine, but I will be!

Turning 30 made me see all that I wasn’t seeing earlier.

The 365 days to my 30th birthday were laden with unlearning my pride that stopped me from acknowledging whatever I felt.

I stopped telling myself I am too good for anything that is lacking in my life.

I stopped questioning the universe.

I stopped being bitter.

I stopped expecting others to show up for me, instead, I did that myself.

I sat down with my feelings each day, sorting through whatever I felt so that I could move on.

One of the most powerful sentences is, “I am not fine, but I will be!”

And the day I acknowledged that was when I started feeling genuinely fine, no escape needed.

And that truly is the definition of I am fine.

Image Source: Still from short film Name Plate/Blush, via YouTube

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