What Your Hurting Friend Might Really Mean When She Says She's "Okay"

Oh, mama. I have such a heart-wrenching number of people in my life who have experienced trials and grief and loss lately.

Some of the losses are due to literal, physical death—unexpected, too-soon passings of people my sweet friends cannot imagine life without.

Some of the losses, though, have been caused by other kinds of death: the death of dreams or hopes or expectations of what would or could or should be. I’ve tried to check in with these women as they’ve journeyed through their seasons of sorrow—and admittedly, have done an unsteady job of it. Often, when I’ve asked how they are, they’ve answered, “I’m doing okay.” By which I understand they do not necessarily really mean "okay.”

From what I can glean from these brave friends and from my own experiences in OK-land, “I’m doing okay,” is sometimes just the easiest, most socially acceptable way of communicating, “I’m not good or fine. I’m something else, something complicated and messy that I’m not even sure about myself.”

I don’t pretend for one second to fully grasp what my friends mean when they say they’re “doing okay.” But I'm so honored to be over on Her View From Home, sharing a few possibilities that seem like they might honor the truth...

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