You’re Not Okay, I’m Not Okay, We’re Not Okay and That’s Okay.

Have you ever felt really optimistic and motivated and then have it all go down the bidet the next day? Or even worse, wake up on top of the world (I like to start my day off with Rick Ross' Hustlin' when I feel such, don't judge y'all), ready to conquer and by dinner time feel like everyone and everything rejected you (forget conquering you just want to get through the day in one piece)? If you have checked yes to both of those things, congratulations, you are a flesh and blood human being with a beating heart.

It’s always amazed me how things go wrong when you least expect it or should I say, feel so strong and uplifted that you can't imagine feeling anything but those things. Sure, you get to a certain age and you expect a little wrinkle here and there but it’s no fluke that life often serves us a big dose of “Let’s see how you are going to handle THIS tough guy” right before you sat down and said to yourself, “Bring it, world, I got this!” You ain’t got shit, sweetheart. It’s okay. None of us really do.

Two weeks ago I was making sure my correspondence was up to date (Facebook, Yahoo email, POF, that sort of modern girl thing) and was feeling good. Like really good. Actually, the fact that I was catching up on my correspondence was a sign that I was feeling good because who wants to answer, “How are things?” with a truthful “Awful.” There I sat at my computer writing away, feeling light and carefree, happily replying to email after email with an honest, "I'm really good" then bam, like clockwork a not so nice message was calling my name. Who sent it and why is was sent is not important in this dialogue but rather what should be investigated is how fast the light and carefree girl from an hour ago transformed into somebody who had tears in her eyes trying to tell herself she was too old to cry over spilled milk or in this case, a mean girl who have no love for ol’ Karinie.

As I sat there, hurt and confused by the message I just received, I had a thought- if I truly was that carefree and happy girl from an hour ago, then how and why would this message affect me? If my feelings were genuine, then how can anything possibly touch me? Or more importantly, if the ground on which I stand on is rock solid, how can anyone ever shake me? It was right there and then that I realized that to be human, or in my case, to be a sensitive human, meant that there is no such thing as rock solid ground. Ever. You would think such news would have upset me even more but on the contrary, it uplifted me. 

What I was feeling, a good day turned upside down is what most people experience. I was no different from them and there was no shame in feeling happy and going to sleep feeling the opposite. 

The realization that life was both a rock solid marble concrete I walk on and a big bumpy playhouse underneath was comforting. Life really is an abundance of the both the good and the bad; carefree and light and painful hard in the same breath. No going around it. That’s what makes all of us human and that's the path that is in front of us.

The fact that you can be in a metaphorical tropical climate and feel hot and want to remove a layer of clothing and then feel cold when put in a proverbial ice storm and long for that warm sweater you just took off, doesn’t mean that your thermometer is off but rather you react to both the cold and the hot. As every human should. Would you ever want to be the person that is in the heat and then the cold and says both feel the same? I don’t. Human beings are reactionary creatures and really have the ability to experience every emotion and feeling there exists when living in a world where anything can happen to them.

Or maybe the plan is to always keep you guessing. You know, never allow your head to get so big and your heart so strong from never feeling heartache that you forget what sadness does feel like and have no way of understanding (see: comforting) someone suffering. To make you have enough in your emotional bank account to feel good but not so much to that you start believing that nothing can ever touch you.

Or maybe if you are constantly on unsteady ground, always knowing that a boost of suffering and heartache can come at you any time or day then maybe you can start appreciating your happy times just a little bit more. As cliché as it may sound, the truth is, the happiest happy have suffered the most and thus actually appreciate good times like nobody else can understand. “Why are you so in this moment” they might ask and you’ll reply, “Cause I know it wont last.”

The good news is, mean girls (and mean boys), just like emotions, come and go. None of them hold on to you indefinitely. Nothing can. If you can remember that on your darkest day then there is nothing you won't get through.

Everyday we are walking on unsteady ground. Wake up with a smile on your face on Tuesday, cherish it, it may not be the same story on a Wednesday. Same goes for you who went to bed with tears in your eyes on a Friday. Cheer up, something amazing might happen to you next Saturday. Feel hurt by a certain person. Guess what, they too are going to be coming and going. Remember that part I said about nothing being able to hold on to you indefinitely? Same thing goes for those you meet, for those you hate and sadly, even those you love. Nothing and no one can hold on to you indefinitely. Find comfort that nothing lasts forever; not your popularity, not your loneliness, not your youth, your sadness, and as my favorite lyrics said to me on a very dark 1999 October day, “Not even cold November rain.”