Ink and Vein

I don’t know how to answer this question. I don’t like this question.

Especially when it comes to me at parties or at work or in really public, busy places, or from people I haven’t seen in a while, or from people I don’t know particularly well, or from people I don’t necessarily trust with the truest answer to that question.

This last one, it’s not that I don’t trust the person with the information, but that I don’t trust how they will respond. I don’t know if they’ll validate or dismiss or offer advice on how I should feel. I don’t know if they’ll be too caught up in their own struggles to respond with care to mine. I don’t know if I’ll receive empathy, pity, impatience, perhaps even anger.

I don’t always feel like answering this question with full transparency, either. I don’t want to say, “I’m struggling” and then have to stand on the sidewalk for a heart-to-heart, or yell over music that my depression is setting in again or that my anxiety is spiking and I feel like I need to apologize for my existence and that it’s just easier to be alone than it is to be around people, even though my lonely heart aches so much sometimes I’m convinced the pressure will make it stop beating.

I don’t always tell people how I really am because I feel like I should be better. Because I will not be able to tell them what I need, or how they can support me. Because, in most cases, they will not be able to give me the support I need and want and the loneliness of a “no” after vulnerability is something I’m tired of feeling.

I don’t always tell people how I really am, because I don’t have the energy to explain it, I’m tired of talking about it, tired of being it.

I don’t always tell people how I really am, because I know they are carrying a lot, too, and I don’t want to give them more.

I don’t always tell people how I really am, because I don’t always know. I’m usually a mix of things: excited about the latest book I’m reading; optimistic about progress on the book I’m writing; discouraged about lack of progress on my book; excited about creative collaborations and completely overwhelmed by them, too; worried about my friends; worried about my family; worried about the world; uncertain about my future; desperately lonely; overwhelmed by people and activities. And there’s more.

Most often I say some version of “Oh, you know. Really busy. How are you?”