I’m fine

Why is it that we always try to convince ourselves that we’re okay, even when the world is crumbling around us?! Do we have this sick morbid default setting that allows us to believe the bullshit we’re selling to ourselves? Or is it that we try to push our emotional and physical limits to grow stronger as a person?

Either way, the words “I’m fine” could either be a blessing or a curse. Whichever person you telling them to.

I’m a fond believer in using the phrase “I’m fine” when things are going tough. It’s not that I’m some attention seeking whore that wants everyone to kiss my ass to find out how I am, but I actually use the phrase to get people off my backs. Cause see, when I say it, I can say it with a smile that will make even Meryl Streep seem like a bad actress.

Sometimes,”I’m fine” is my safe house in a storm raging around me and I can escape everything for the time being.

Lately, I’ve been saying it a lot, trying to convince everyone and myself that I’m okay. Whilst I was vacationing under a banner of avoidance, I soon realised that this safe house I had created for myself, had been compromised.

It wasn’t “fine”. Things were beyond awful lately.

It felt like the entire world was against me – or at the least some element of disaster had been plaguing me rampantly.

Suddenly, saying “I’m fine” wasn’t cutting it anymore.

It wasn’t ’till I met this nice old lady on the train the other morning. Let’s say it was by fate that I met her.

While we took our journey to the city, I saw her peering over at me. I was slumped against the window, staring into the distance.

She inched closer to me, and then looked at me and said: “My boy, the monsters that you think are chasing you right now, are only living in your imagination or under your bed.”

There was a silent moment while I stared at her, before a small smirk drew over my lips.

“And besides. Face it. You could have been Jay Z in the lift with Beyonce’s sister.”

I started laughing. She was a very wise, clued up old lady.

And I realised again that we get caught up in our own worlds so easily. And your problems always seem big in your own world, until you step out of it and look at it from the outside.

While I keep using the phrase “I’m fine” in vain, I was actually “fine”. In retrospect, things could be worse. But they’re not.

I’m fine… It’s not the phrase that pays, but it’s the phrase that stays.

While the world motors on around me, I’m going to start taking more value out of “I’m fine”… And while I soak up that lesson, I’ll lean towards the hope that the sun might shine tomorrow.