There are days when I don’t know exactly what is wrong.
I just know that something inside me feels heavy.
I wake up.
I go to work.
I speak to people.
I smile.
I get things done.
From the outside, everything probably looks perfectly normal.
But sometimes, I wish someone would look a little closer and ask, “How are you really doing?”
Because “I’m fine” has become such an easy answer.
I’ve learned how to keep going even when I don’t particularly feel like going anywhere.
Living away from home has taught me a lot.
It has made me independent. It has made me stronger. It has given me experiences I never imagined I would have.
But nobody really tells you about the other side of being away.
You miss ordinary things.
You miss familiar faces.
You miss having someone around who doesn’t need an explanation for how you’re feeling.
You miss home in strange little moments. Not necessarily when something big happens, but when you’ve had a difficult day and suddenly wish you could just be somewhere familiar.
And sometimes, even when you’re surrounded by people, you can still feel incredibly alone.
I think that’s one of the strangest feelings.
To be functioning, but not necessarily feeling okay.
To laugh with someone and then go back to your room and feel completely different.
To be proud of yourself for how far you’ve come and, at the same time, quietly wonder when life started becoming so exhausting.
There have been moments when I’ve felt emotionally drained and asked myself,
“Is this really what my life is supposed to feel like?”
I don’t always have an answer.
Maybe that’s okay.
Perhaps we put too much pressure on ourselves to have everything figured out.
We think that because we’re adults, we should know what we’re doing.
We should be strong.
We should be grateful.
We should be happy.
But we are allowed to be grateful and still feel lonely.
We are allowed to love our life and still miss another life.
We are allowed to be strong and still have days when we fall apart.
We are allowed to not know what comes next.
I’ve started to understand that life doesn’t always become lighter because our problems disappear.
Sometimes it becomes lighter because we stop fighting ourselves for having feelings.
So if you’re reading this on a difficult day, I want you to know something.
You don’t have to pretend here.
You don’t have to explain why you’re tired.
You don’t have to turn your pain into a beautiful lesson.
You don’t have to be positive today.
Maybe today you just need to breathe.
Maybe you need to cry.
Maybe you need to be quiet.
Maybe you need to remind yourself that the person you are today is still worthy of love, even if she doesn’t feel particularly strong.
And maybe tomorrow will feel a little different.
I don’t know what your story is.
I don’t know what you’ve been carrying quietly.
But I know what it feels like to keep moving while a part of you is asking for a pause.
So, from one woman to another:
You don’t have to have everything figured out.
You don’t have to be okay every day.
And you don’t have to figure out tomorrow while you’re still making it through today.
For now, just get through today.
That’s enough.
And perhaps, somewhere along the way, we’ll discover that life wasn’t asking us to become stronger all the time.
Maybe it was simply asking us to be a little kinder to ourselves.
Fal Haven 🌹
Falhaven 