How Are You, Really?
On carrying a lot quietly even when the day looks good from the outside.
I’m the friend who asks how are you really. Not the surface level bs.
I ask because I actually want to know. I create space for it. I hold it when people bring me the real answer.
Lately though I’ve been finding it hard to answer that question myself.
There have been days recently that looked completely fine from the outside. Full calendar. Purposeful meetings. Work moving. All the things. And underneath all of it I was feeling really low in a way I couldn’t quite name or place.
And the complicated part is I have a tribe. Real ones. Including my therapist. People who ask me how I really am and mean it. I’m not lacking in that department and I don’t take it for granted for a second.
But sometimes even with all of that the answer is hard to find.
Sometimes you don’t know how you really are. Sometimes the low feeling doesn’t have a clean explanation. It’s just the weight of it all catching up to you in a quiet moment between calls.
The pressure of building something while taking care of your family. While showing up for your clients. While trying to be present for the people you love. While also trying to take care of yourself somewhere in the middle of all of that.
It’s a lot. And some days it just feels like a lot even when nothing is technically wrong.
I used to feel a little guilty about that. Like I should just be grateful because the meetings went well and the work is moving. And I am grateful. But I’ve had to learn to embrace the duality of both things being true.
What I’m learning is that the low days don’t cancel the good ones. They’re just information. A signal that something needs attention. Rest maybe. Or just acknowledgment. Sometimes you just need to name it out loud so it stops sitting so heavy.
So if someone asks you how you really are today and you don’t quite know the answer yet, that’s okay. You don’t have to have it figured out.
And if nobody has asked you lately, consider this me asking.
How are you, REALLY?