How I Am

People ask me, as I'm sure they do you, a hundred times a day how I am. Most times, they are simply being cordial. You are supposed to ask that, right? You are supposed to care. But sometimes, very rarely, the people who know me will look me in the eyes and ask. And I know they don't want to know how my day was. They want to know how my heart is. How I am. Most times I tell the cordial people I am good. Most times I tell the real seekers I am ok. The second one is true.

I really am ok. I don't walk around thinking about pain or feeling angry. In fact, most of the time, I'm pretty happy. I love my life at school. I love the people in it. And my happiness isn't fake. I'm not putting on a show for anyone. I really do feel it. But that's only mostly me.

Touring a cavern, they take you deep down beneath the earth, but they only take you so far. They only can take you so far. And you're not seeing something fake. It's still really the real cave, it's just not all the way down. Down deeper is much messier, without the nicely paved sidewalks or lighting. It's a sloppy place, the belly of a cavern. I suppose it's the same with people. Deep down is pretty messy.

My happy runs deep, it goes beneath the surface (that's called joy), but my very, very inside isn't such a pretty place. It's beat up. My heart and my soul are bloody and bruised. They don't hurt from just one thing, because nothing hurts from just one thing. One thing produces a thousand shards of a thousand little things that fly out and cut and hurt. Life is broke and sloppy. Humans cause pain, and the hurt sloshes out and splashes on anyone near. Deep down in the center of me is an ache. Most days it's just a dull throb; some days I even forget or choose to ignore that it's there. But some days, when I can slip away by myself and let myself think, I bleed.

Those days I don't want to slap on a band-aid and move forward. I need to bleed. I don't want to be cheered up. I just want to sit and ache and cry and bleed. Wounds have to hurt before they heal, or else they wouldn't be wounds at all.

I don't want to spend my life with an aching soul, but I think for now it fits. Ache is an appropriate response to painful experiences. But one day, I will wake up without the hurt. And the next day again. And the day after that. And one day I will not daily feel the throbbing in my core. I think I must choose it.

I will. I will choose to pat the pain on his head and send him on his way. In fact, I am already starting to do that, a bit every day. But sometimes I'm too tired to shoo him off. And sometimes I don't want to. I don't think that's wrong. I think it's real.

So how am I? I'm ok. But one day, one day soon perhaps, I will be grand.