On “Not Being Okay”

I remember reading something striking in my biology book in 5th grade. The function of tears, the book said, was to “lubricate eyes, clean out dirt” but also “to communicate emotions.” I thought that was so profound. I had not thought of it this way, that our biological functions can be designed to communicate our emotional world, that that can be a core part of their functions. Maybe that is also why we bleed and why blood is red, to communicate that we are injured and in pain. 

I often have trouble believing that I’m not okay, and these days I hold on to the fact that I always feel like crying as proof that I am not. Whenever I feel tears coming, it's strangely relieving because it justifies my functioning differently than I would like to: not writing enough, not keeping the house clean, not being “on top of it” at large. I must be going through something. I am not always like this. 

This always thing has been a bit of a struggle lately. It feels like so much of adulthood goes by with less than ideal mental health that I’m always waiting to be better. It seems as though there is a better, more active and happier version of me out there, it's just that I am not that way right now because I’m “going through something”. At what point do you have to say that “going through something” is just what being me is like? How long can you keep distancing yourself from who you are when you’re not okay, if you’re “not okay” most days of the year?

It eats at me that I have not written the newsletter in six months. I tell myself it’s because I haven't been okay. But for six months? For half a fucking year? And look I know, getting better takes the time it takes. I know that there is no “acceptable timeframe for depression to last”. But, and I know this sounds funny, it feels like half a year is dangerously close to my whole life. If I have not been okay for the last six months, is there a being okay waiting for me in the next six? Why would there be? What reason do I have to believe that there is? 

I have started to feel like this is what adulthood is. It's always going to be a bit of a mess, and depression will always be lurking by the corner. I will have moments of joy that make me forget about it, but there is no version of me that is Capital T Thriving. It feels like that is a fantasy, a snapshot if you will, that stops me from dedicating myself completely to the current moment.(Warning: Unreliable narrator, not to be taken at face value. May turn around next week and say he’s Thriving and has no clue what he was crying about.)

I read some relationship advice a few years ago that stayed with me. Apparently, it's a red flag if you’re in a relationship counting on “potential”, that there is a future version of the other person who will have overcome the things you don’t like about them. It's understandable that this is a red flag - you could spend your whole life waiting. I feel like too much of my life has gone by with me waiting to be better. “I’ll go to this gathering when I’m better”, “I’ll write the newsletter when I’m better.” Maybe I just need to do all those things imperfectly while staying in my sadness. 

There is a thin line there between going out and doing things for your own good and pushing yourself too hard and having a public breakdown. What if I am at a party and cannot control my tears? What if my brain is so completely fogged out that I’m insufferably boring and nobody wants to stand near me for more than five minutes? Oh god, what if I’m that guy awkwardly standing alone while everyone else is chatting in groups? Surely, that’s worse than being in my bed scrolling through reels. Surely, there is some value in recognizing that I’m not up for this right now, and that it might be better for me to wait it out?

The other thing that bugs me about “not being okay” is that it makes the whole “consistency” thing feel so out of reach. Everybody on the internet keeps preaching that the magic happens when you write consistently, when you post consistently. Of course, the ideal human being for the content mill is one that keeps producing. Of course, it rewards that human being. But are there people who find it easy to do that? Are there people who aren’t knocked out for months (or years) at a time and fail at being consistent? If there are, good for them. My life currently is not structured for that kind of consistency in my creative life. (AKA I have a job that pays my bills and on most days turning up for it feels like all the consistent I can be.)

The boring answer to these open questions seems to be to take it one day at a time, because of course, being “not okay” is not a monolith and has its variants. Some days, I’m too “not okay” to do anything. On other days, I’m less “not okay” and maybe I can ramble on for a few paragraphs or clean my room a little. I think navigating this well involves the ability to calibrate my level of “not okay” honestly and make decisions on that basis. 

Somehow that doesn’t feel like a resolution, maybe because it isn’t a resolution as much as a way to cope. I’m not sure I have a resolution. Maybe I will one day when I’m okay, but I know better than to hold my breath.