are you okay

Are you okay?

‘Are you okay?’ She said. This was the third time she has asked this month. I felt no need to reply in deep poetic ways. I kept it short and delivered as sweetly as possible without coming of as ironic.

‘I’m good.’

I then went to the task at hand.

When someone looks at me again without my beard, again without my mask, the angular nature of my face seems to betray a pain that I am withholding. An internal struggle that requires the other person to check in. While I have my moments, days, weeks, months of times that are under, an uninformed ‘are you okay?’ creates a larger divide, the opposite of their intent. I believe in positive intent, but there can also be an outputting on someone else. Placing their problems on me. Why do I have to answer a question about my current mind space, at work, after 5 hours of work that started at 5 am? I have no interest in trying to connect in that moment. I keep people at a distance, and some people can tell when I am. Others know better than to ask out of turn. I want to know about you, I will be a listening ear for you. But an ill placed check in that isn’t from my inner circle does not make me want to connect with you in a larger way.

Quietude. Working to work. Just do the work. I have this mentality at work, when my pay check and others expectations are looking down at me. Yet when there is work to be done for the self, such as continuing writing, I put it off. The phone must be put down.

Harder than ever to sit down and look at art. I enjoy having people I am interested talking while writing.

There is a lot of narcissism in self hatred. – David Foster Wallace