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No, How Are You, Really?
Are You OK? How are you doing?
Every time someone asks me this question lately, I feel a sense of confusion, occasionally followed by a rising frustration. I’m fine. I have food, a job, a support network, and even toilet paper. Nothing has changed since the last time I was asked this question.
Was something wrong? No. But was I really OK? I’m….not sure.
I’m not fine. But my rational brain couldn’t latch on to a good enough reason why I am not fine at this very moment, so I tell others (and myself) that I am fine.
But I have an underlying unease that I can’t fully shake. I have days where I feel completely unmotivated or unfocused, and even small acts of productivity seem like a Herculean effort. Then there are other days where I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude and joy at the sight of flowers blooming. The problem was, I never knew when my feelings would switch.
There were parts of this that were easy to understand. The external triggers small and large that remind us that life has changed— the empty shelves in the supermarket, the irate jogger who yells at us to move, the continuous predictions of economic doom, and the friends who have lost their jobs.
But then there were the days when I would just wake up and feel different. What was that about? The answer is — I don’t know.
What I do know is that our collective understanding of what “normal” is has completely shifted yet we don’t have the corresponding vocabulary to talk about it. The new definition of “normal” needs to encapsulate fluid shifts in emotions — from extreme optimism and productivity to inexplicable malaise. It also needs to contain an element of confusion and uncertainty — “I’m OK now, but if this keeps going…”
Finally, it needs to be blanketed by collective grief — because we’ve all lost something to COVID-19.
So, if we are going to get through this together, we are going to need to be able to talk about this new “normal” and well….normalize it.
Here are some honest answers that I think we should allow ourselves to say:
