Image

Re-de-fine-d

Ask me how I’m doing
and I’ll say “fine”, not
because I’m actually fine,
but because “fine” is the only
socially acceptable response.

If I said that I have been lying
here, for three hours now,
willing my body to move,
that would elicit unsolicited
advice and tarnish my “fine”.

I’d berate myself for breaking
my promise not to moan,
knowing that complaining
provokes a compulsive need
to fix, which just infuriates me

Because my concept of trying –
which is defined by getting dressed
each day – does not match trying
every new therapy, drug, exercise
offered by well-meaning but clueless

others, who may experience fatigue
at times, but have no understanding
of what is is to be exhausted after
something as simple as bathing,
let alone debating what I haven’t tried.

So, ask me how I’m feeling, and
I’ll say “fine” and we move on
to the weather, or the latest
movie must-see, and I can bask
in the warmth of the contact

carry the conversation into the
void of the rest of my day, smile
to think that I still have friends
who accept my “fine” even though
they know I am anything but…

(Art my own)

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VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

68 thoughts on “Re-de-fine-d”

  2. This is exactly how I feel most of the time these days. Desperately looking for a job and facing rejections daily, every time someone asks me how I am doing I am forced to respond with a fine though my mind and heart screams otherwise.

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  4. I love your poem. I so often feel this way when my depression is bad and it doesn’t make sense to try to explain to others because no one really understands it unless they too suffer from depression. So I just say fine and force that smile which I hide behind. I am good at hiding, which drains me of any left over energy I may have at that time. Thank you for expressing it so well.

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  16. Its so true, its just so easy to always say Im fine or Im okay… when really. In true honesty the world needs more honesty. How are you, honestly Im having a really hard day and am working at shifting that energy, goodness that feels better just saying that!?

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  19. This was a powerful poem!! I get what you mean about saying “fine” even when everything is falling apart Sometimes I just don’t have the energy to explain or try to tell someone I’m not fine, because I end up consoling them and that just wears away at my energy,

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  20. “Anything but…” well put, VJ. Accepting we are not “fine” now let’s talk about something else, is good for me. I don’t react well to that “compulsive need to fix”. BTW the art is a perfect companion to the poem. Hugs!!

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  25. It’s as if you took a look inside my mind, VJ!!! Like you, my answer is almost always either “fine” or “okay” when asked that question, “How are you?” And like you, after my morning shower I am so exhausted that I can barely go, but I push myself, for the kitties must be fed. As I said, you have read my mind! Either that, or we are soul sisters!

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  28. It is sad that we cannot answer that question truthfully when we are not fine. I’ve found it a kind of protection to say fine, to keep the hurt or pain hidden from those who wouldn’t understand and would be forced to voice platitudes in return. But how nice it would be to open that dam and let the floods loose to someone who would just hold and hug us.

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  33. I prefer to say to someone when I see them, Nice to see you….as I know the How are you only gives robotic response we are all programmed to say. I love the artwork VJ, it really illustrates your poem.

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  34. it’s not a good thing, that we are forced to respond to others in a socially “acceptable” manner, even when we’re not feeling well, but, we are socialized, to hid our emotions, and eventually if and when we pretend long enough, it becomes, true…and we will keep on, lying to ourselves, after it’d worked a first time.

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