Am I Okay?

Summer 2020

“You’re not as good a liar as you think you are.”

I turned away as she said that. My best friend knew me better than I thought. “You don’t need to hide your true thoughts,” she continued. “It’s been a difficult few months.”

“I’ve been luckier than most,” I answered.

“That has nothing to do with you. You don’t get to measure other people’s problems with yours.”

“I know.”

“But do you really? Then why’d you just tell me you’re okay?”

How could I explain that to the friend who lost a parent to a deadly virus? How could I complain to someone who had nine kids at home for three months, when I only had three kids at home during this time? How could I wrap my head around the fact that though it’s been difficult, my own experience wasn’t nearly as bad, even incomparable, to so many people out there. I didn’t feel worthy of sympathy. Because during this time so many good things have happened in my life.

What I truly feel is the need to be grateful for my lot. We had exciting births in the family. We had weddings. No one in the immediate family was sick at all. Business went on pretty much as usual seeing as remote working was easy for the type of work we do.

Still, many emotions, some I can’t fully understand, keep warring around in my head. Now that the kids are back at their programs, and the house is quiet for a few hours, I can’t seem to do the things I dreamed about when those hours were filled with dealing with and running after kids. I am experiencing emotions that I can’t decipher. Anxiety? Survivor’s guilt? Mind-boggling confusion and unadulterated fear? The sensible voices in my head are telling me that nothing happens that isn’t Hashem’s plan. And for a moment I take a deep breath and I accept.

I feel like closing my eyes and going back in time. What was it I wished for when we were quarantined? I wanted to organize the house. I wanted to catch up with friends. I dreamed about writing incessantly, uninterrupted. I wished I could eat healthy instead of the foods that kept being brought into the house by well-meaning shoppers and school and government benefits.

Now that I have the quiet and the wherewithal, I seem to not know what to do first. I make a phone call and feel like I’ve accomplished a huge thing. I go through the mail and feel like a skilled doer. Did I really make a salad for myself the other day? That felt good. It’s the little things, I tell myself.

Yet why do I feel torn? I’m thrilled that the children are in day camp. I’ve yearned for the quiet. The news out there is still debilitating, but slowly and surely life is getting back to normal. And I feel odd. Sometimes I want to cry. Sometimes I want to do nothing. At times I feel like I deserve a vacation, but from what, exactly?

I say I’m okay when someone asks me if I’m okay, because other people have it worse. Other people have to deal with their losses. There are people who have lost their livelihood and need to start over. There are people who haven’t seen loved ones, parents, or children in months. I can’t say so much for myself.

The harsh circumstances of today’s world and its’ all-encompassing misery is collective as well as it is isolating.

So, I lie. I lie to myself as well as to the people who care to show concern. I lie to demonstrate gratefulness. Because when I lie and say I’m okay, I’m fine, will Hashem not take away all the good things He has bestowed upon me?

What does He want from me right now? How do I prove the fact that I’m a grateful human being and still keep true to my feelings of despair? How do I express gratitude to the One who stands watch over me like no other?

I look out my window and watch the breeze flutter through the leaves on the foliage that is towering over my property. It feels like a welcoming wave from a Higher Power. Come on out here and enjoy the world I have given to you; it seems to say. I continue to sit on my kitchen chair, watching the tree limbs play in the gentle wind. The weather from over here on my private perch looks amazing. My backyard is quiet. There is no chaos. There is no noise. There are no protests and riots, Boruch Hashem.

There are no immediate threats on the calm serenity I am gifted today. So today, I decide to accept with open arms the offering from my heavenly Father. This is what He is giving to me. And despite the fuzzy feelings of fear of the unknown, the butterfly feelings of paranoia and anxiety, and the hard heart-wrenching knowledge that people have it so much worse, I am thankful and grateful for my lot.

Thank you, Hashem, for giving me all that You have. Thank you, Hashem, for granting me the circumstances in which I live my life.

I’m okay if I say I’m okay.

So, thank you Hashem for making me okay.

Miriam Weiser