Three Simple Words
“How are you?”
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It’s often a formality, this question. And yet, it’s often also one of the most vulnerable things to look in someone’s eyes and ask them. But we do it anyway. We engage in formalities as a society to acknowledge that you’re a human and I’m a human and we are more than the flesh and bones and clothing and accessories and makeup and brands and whatever other masks we use to shield us from such vulnerable knowings about each other.
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A grocery worker asks this to make conversation because even though they are there for their paycheck and you are there to stalk your kitchen, those three words acknowledge that you are both in fact human beings, after all.
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A co-worker asks to be cordial, to acknowledge that in the 12-14 hour period between when you both clocked out and came back, you go home to a life that they probably know very little about, but that it includes real people and real family and real tragedy and real beauty and real laughter and the real, non-work version of you.
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A therapist asks because he or she knows you are sitting on the couch across from them trying to figure out the actual answer to this question. Because some days the answer is harder and more complicated to articulate than others and you need an unbiased sounding board to help you weed through the circus in your head.
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A doctor asks, even though they know the answer can’t be good because no one seeks medical attention when they are thriving.
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A friend asks the question, hoping for an honest answer because whether it’s comfortable or not to hear your truth, they love you and want to be a shoulder to cry on, a needed laugh, a listening ear.
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A partner asks with the intention of fulfilling the commitment they made to be the half that makes you whole on the days you’re not strong enough to do it yourself. Because they, too, want the truth of their person and your wellbeing is a priority to them.
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“How are you?”
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It’s been one of those seasons where this simple question feels incredibly loaded, whether it’s the grocery clerk or my very closest people. We all know these seasons; no one is immune to them. They come and they go and they never last forever, but that’s hard to remember because sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t visible from every point along the way. You have to believe it’s there based on its faithfulness to show up in every hard thing you’ve come out the other side of up to this point. Based on the fact that you have been through hard things and are still standing - that is the proof, your reason to hope.
It’s during these seasons that we feel so fragile that the tiniest acts of kindness - the simplicity of the smell of summer in my kids hair at the end of a long day as I snuggle them to sleep, the unexpected flower blooming from seeds we planted in spring, the summer sun setting around a bonfire with dear friends while our wild, beautiful children run and laugh barefoot in the grass, make me not just tear up - but sob.
Grief is like that. It hits unexpectedly, sometimes even in the most beautiful moments.
This puzzled me the first time it happened a few months back.
Some call it foreboding joy. Some call it an inability to stay present.
But I’ve come to realize that sometimes it’s a messy combination of gratitude in the swirled up in the grief. Gratitude that even here, even in the darkest moments, joy never left, after all, we just forgot to look for it. Sometimes joy feels so far away, so out of reach, that when your guard is down enough to access it, even if just for a moment, you remember that the good has not been absent, after all. And these glimpses of hope? They are promises that healing is happening, if it is not linear.
That even when the pain and the hard is so damn loud, the good has to be intentionally sought so you don’t miss it.
And it’s not easy. Sometimes it feels like there is not one ounce left to muster for anything - good or hard.
But it’s the only way. Because the glimpses of joy and all that is good are the only things that get us through, that give us hope, that remind us why we are here.
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“How are you?”
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Spoiler alert, it’s okay if the answer is messy. Unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders, and take a breath. You might just find something beautiful. It’s also possible that the person asking it is looking for the very humanness your answer has to offer.
