Late last week, someone asked me how I was doing. My usual answer to this is, “Good!” because it’s polite, and usually I’d rather talk about something else – but this time, the person who asked is someone I know well, who I have some shared history with, and I answered more honestly:
“I’m actually successfully coping and I’m really damn proud of that.”
There are, of course, plenty of people in the world dealing with tougher stuff than I am. I am not hungry. I am not under physical threat. I am healthy. I am not scared about money.
But. People I care about are going through really tough things. I am busy, legitimately & ridiculously busy, not in an “oh gosh I’m just so busy!” way but no, actually really busy in an “I spend over half an hour each day just getting my schedule to make some sense and not have overlapping things that simply do not work” kind of way. I am in a job that I think I love, but which still feels new, and I feel like I have a lot to learn. I’m facing various kinds of career pressure, some self-imposed, some not. I’m thinking a lot about what I want my life to look like. And I’m about to hit the one-year mark on the Horrible House Remodel, after 3+ prior years of half-remodeling & some moving chaos before that, all of which means I haven’t lived somewhere calm in over five years.
And on the other hand, I am coping. I am going to the gym. I am gardening. I am reading. I am seeing friends. I am seeing family. I am occasionally writing. I am not completely dropping the ball at work, and every so often I come up with a useful insight or approach that I’m proud of. My team is doing well, and I’m getting positive feedback on them from people they in turn work with.
So I’m busy, and not everything is good, but I’m coping, and I am pretty damn proud of that.
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