Are You Ok?

Are You Ok?

I don't mean the version of you that woke up this morning and showed up to your role saying you are fine or didn't say anything at all. I don't mean the efficient skilled performer who carries out their tasks flawlessly. I am not speaking to the person who has learned to suffer in silence so that the people who love you don't worry.

I am talking to the person who knows how much you are carrying and has stopped expecting anyone to notice. The one who lies awake because there is still so much that isn't resolved and sleep feels like an unaffordable surrender. The one who has refused to share that they are drowning and has decided they would rather drown by themselves than pull someone else under.

Are you ok?

Trust me, I know your answer is not simple and what you are holding within you cannot be held in a simple conversation. We both know you have tried to find the words and they didn't come out. I know you tried to stretch your hand out and ask to be held but you are so used to holding other people's hands that breaking from this role seems foreign. I know you are being kind and mature and the responsible one but you don't always have to. I can see it slowly breaking you and it breaks my heart. Allow yourself to feel, to be vulnerable.

I know you are exhausted from doing and holding so much. From being quietly afraid but being composed all the time. I can imagine that for once, you need to be the one who is being held, who wants to live and let the carefully built jenga building that is your life to collapse and be proud of it.

You don't have to be the one who always has solutions. Allow yourself to feel and if you can't do so in real life, please come back to these words and let them comfort you when things are hard and you feel lonely despite being surrounded by so many people around you.

I want you to know that you matter beyond what you produce and provide. You matter beyond the role you have been filling so faithfully that people have forgotten to check on you. I also want you to know that you were not put in this world just to hold things and people together. You were put here to fully live and function and I see you.

I see the real you, the tired one who has been quietly extraordinary without any acknowledgement. I want you to know that I am here for you and I hope you are ok.

Please feel free to tell me the truth. I am here and I am not going anywhere.