The One Question Undoing Us All

How’s it going?

It’s asked so simply, so quickly, so this-is-what-I’m-supposed-to-say that almost always I respond with that ingrained response–Fine. All good. Can’t complain.

Pick your poison.

Because what if we all actually answered that question honestly–How’s it going?

It? Life? Finances? Motherhood? Job? State of the union? Facebook following?

There’s too much, maybe. Really. Too much to say and too little to say about it and too balanced on the edge of a precipice we’re afraid to dive down into deep.

So we’re fine.

Except we’re not.

We’ve got Puerto Rico and Houston and Florida and North Georgia and Vegas and Oregon and California–all drowning or burning or scavenging or sweating or bleeding. None of us are really fine.

Yet I worry over Amazon stats and retweets and Facebook followers.

What if we all answered honestly, truly? I told people to stop asking me how it was going last week because I didn’t know what to say. They want me to say it’s great–I wrote a book and the world is all sunshine and dreams realized.

But it’s not.

Because there’s still bills and math tests and soured laundry and sad people and lost friends and too  many expectations I’ve heaped upon myself before I can answer, Fine. 

But none of us, if we’re honest, really have time for all the burdens of everyone else every time we ask. All the burdens we’re carrying ourselves are more than we can already handle.

So how do we get there? To the other side? To the place of asking and receiving and listening and loving? Because I don’t want a national disaster to continuously shake me out of my stupor.

Except it always, always does. Anytime we blink and realize the world is bigger than us, our problems, our pettiness, our little worries, we let those small things go just a little bit more. And we free up our hands and hearts to hold and hear when someone else needs to be able to say–

It’s not going great. But if you’ll fold hands with me, maybe I’ll be able to breathe a little easier. 

Breathe easier today, friends. You can tell me how it’s really going in the comments, if you’d like.

Available on Amazon or by request at your favorite indie bookstore. Local friends can find signed copies at Books with A, Peal in Cornelia or Home Sweet Home in Elberton.