When “I’m Fine” Doesn’t Mean I’m Fine

There are parts of your life that people see, and then there are the parts they don't. The people you pass in the hallway may know your name, what you wore yesterday, who you hang around with, whether you're funny, quiet, loud, smart, athletic or always getting in trouble. They can sit next to you every day and still have no idea what it took for you to get there that morning.

That's one of the strange things about being around people all day. You can be seen constantly without actually feeling known.

So when somebody asks, “You good?” sometimes “I'm fine” is just easier. It doesn't always mean you're hiding something. You may simply not feel like explaining yourself. But there are also times when those two words are carrying a much longer answer, and you know that if you start telling the truth, you aren't sure where the conversation will end.

There are things young people carry that don't disappear when the school bell rings. Life doesn't politely wait outside the classroom while you take a test. Whatever happened yesterday can still be sitting with you while you're trying to understand what the teacher is saying. You can be thinking about tonight while everybody else is talking about the weekend. You can be trying to make decisions about your future while dealing with things right now that you never should have had to figure out on your own.

Still, somehow, you're expected to keep moving.

And a lot of young people do.

You learn how to function while you're worried. You learn how to laugh while you're hurting. You learn how to enjoy the good moments without them magically fixing the difficult ones. You figure out how to be there for your friends even when you have your own things going on. Eventually, keeping yourself together can become so normal that other people don't realize it takes effort.

Sometimes they call that strength.

Maybe it is.

But there is a side of being strong that people don't talk about enough. When you've handled difficult things before, people can start believing you'll always be able to handle the next thing too. Eventually, you can start expecting the same thing from yourself. You remember everything you've already made it through and tell yourself that whatever you're feeling now shouldn't bother you this much.

That's a hard way to live because it leaves very little room for simply being human. You don't always have to respond to life perfectly. You can be grateful and frustrated at the same time. You can love somebody and still be hurt by what they've done. You can miss someone you know isn't good for you. You can be proud of how far you've come and still wish the road hadn't been so hard. You can have people around you and still feel alone in something they don't understand.

Those things can exist together. Life doesn't always give you one clean emotion at a time.

There may also be things you've gotten so used to that you don't talk about them anymore. Not because they don't matter, but because explaining them gets exhausting. Sometimes people ask questions they aren't prepared to hear the answers to. Sometimes they listen long enough to tell you what they would do, as if you haven't already thought about your situation a hundred different ways. Sometimes people mean well and still don't understand.

After enough of that, keeping things to yourself can feel easier.

That doesn't make you closed off, difficult or broken. Sometimes you're simply protecting parts of yourself that you don't trust everybody to handle carefully.

And honestly, everybody doesn't deserve access to every part of you.

But there is a difference between choosing what you keep private and feeling like there is nowhere in the world where you can put down what you're carrying. That difference can be hard to notice when you've spent a long time depending on yourself.

Maybe that's why “I'm fine” deserves a little more honesty, even if that honesty is only with yourself.

You don't have to turn it into a big conversation. You don't have to suddenly explain your life to somebody. You don't have to figure out exactly what you're feeling or find some perfect word for it. Sometimes acknowledging to yourself that something hurt, that you're angry, that you're exhausted, that you're confused or that you simply don't know how you feel yet is enough for that moment.

There is no prize for pretending something didn't affect you.

There is also no reason to compare what you're carrying to what somebody else is carrying. A person can have everything you wish you had and still be struggling with something you can't see. Someone else can be living through circumstances you couldn't imagine and still laugh harder than anybody in the room. Neither person's feelings have to disappear for the other's to matter.

That's part of what makes people complicated. We are rarely only one thing.

You aren't only what happened to you. You aren't only the mistakes you've made. You aren't only the things people have said about you, the situation you're living in, your grades, your family, your reputation, the way you look, the friends you have or the things you don't have yet. Those things can shape pieces of your story without getting to become the entire story.

And your story isn't finished just because this particular chapter feels long.

There will probably still be plenty of times when someone asks how you're doing and you say, “I'm fine.” Sometimes you will mean it. Sometimes you won't feel like talking. Sometimes you won't even know the real answer yet.

That's okay.

Just don't become so good at convincing everybody else that you're fine that you stop being honest with the one person who already knows the whole story—you.