It’s okay to not be okay.

You’ve heard this, you want to believe this, but you still fight it.

Why do we put such high expectations on ourselves that don’t make space for being real human-beings with real human-being sh*t-storms?

I think many of us are also guilty of telling ourselves that it is perfectly understandable if you just lost a loved one to not be okay. It’s okay if you just got fired or found out about a serious health condition, it’s okay to not be okay.

But, what about the other stuff? What about when life gives you one tiny lemon at a time and before you know it you have a sack full of lemon heads and no sugar in sight?

These are the smaller cracks of life.
You know, the days like this:

It starts with you waking up late after a night of restless tossing and turning that might equal 2 hours total..
—then you get in the shower to realize you are out of conditioner and your razor needs a new blade before you slice yourself open–sooo it’s gunna be a pants kind of day with no sleeveless tops 👀..
—then you go to get dressed and what you picked to wear is too tight (F***! 🙄🫠🫨)..
—then you are already late and you can’t find your phone, you spill coffee on yourself while getting into the car..
—then you get caught behind Aunt Ethel going 30 miles an hour on Spillway—and when you finally make it to the office and sit down…
you get a mother-trucking papercut on the very first piece of paper you touch.

It’s okay to not be okay these days too.

Sometimes the things we have going on are not visible to those around us and maybe we feel they wouldn’t understand anyway. That doesn’t change the fact that, you—on any particular day, may not be okay and that is nothing to feel bad about.

You don’t need to compare your problems to those you perceive to have bigger problems. You get to have bad days too –even if the bad day lasts for weeks. Know that there are other people out there who are struggling with confidence, anxiety, depressive thoughts and more and it doesn’t have to be a direct result of some tragic event or significant turning point in your life.

Know that you are loved and no one’s real life is as perfect as it may seem on social media. Make peace with the bad days, the I’m-not-okay days and cut yourself some slack. Hopefully things will get better, but in the meantime it’s okay to not be okay. Just do your best, in your own time, to be the best “okay” you can be.