Trying to be OK.
It’s what we’re all doing. At least I think so.
We’re running around, often ragged, just trying to be OK.
For someone to take notice. For someone to say attaboy or attagirl. For someone to tell us we’re loved.
Impossible to do fully I know, but what if we didn’t have to look through the glass in anticipation of someone else’s ability to give us our OK-ness?
Are we OK based on how many likes our FB post received? Or wondering if we’re OK depending on what they say about us when we’re not around. Or hoping our efforts are enough to eat right, look right, feel right, think right, earn enough, live in the right house, have the right answers, make the right plans, never screw up…
Exhausting.
Henley, our baby, looked through the office window a few days ago, in between sled trips with her neighbor friend in the backyard.
She didn’t say it of course, but she needed to be reminded that she was OK. That I loved her. That I was still here. That she wouldn’t freeze. That I was OK with her sledding while Brooke was away.
Makes sense at 6. But I’m doing the same thing at 37.
“Hey big, scary world – am I going to be OK?”
My codependent cords aren’t severed completely (and likely never will be fully), but I’m learning that I’m actually OK just as I am. My OK-ness isn’t based on an external reality, like someone’s approval (or possible rejection) of me, my ideas, my work.
I’m fully loved. Just as I am.
And so are you.
We’re OK.
