... fine and whine.
Do you ever just want to get things off your chest, but you can't?
You hesitate because you know that so many people have it bad. So much worse than you.
So you don't talk about things.
You don't want to be whiner.
You want to be brave...
...and strong...
...and minimize things.
Because.
You don't want to be a whiner.
So you say, "Oh, I'm fine. Yeah. I'm fine."
But what you really want to say is, "Darn! My life feels so complicated right now and I feel like I'm on a ferris wheel that won't shut off and I'm sitting in the little dangly chair thing, screaming inside my head, but nobody hears and I feel like I want to throw up and if this STUPID ferris wheel doesn't let me off soon I'm gonna..."
We hesitate in telling because I think we think that the other person is going to think, "Geez, who does she think she is whining about that petty stuff when so many people have it bad...when so many people have it wayyy worse than she does."
(Yes, I know I used 'think' a lot of times in that sentence. I'm rebellious like that in my writing. Think, think, think. So there.)
But I wonder if the other person is actually thinking, "Wow, things are pretty tough for her right now and I hope I can help her because that's what people are supposed to do...help other people through rough times."
I'm not sure, but I think the second thing is actually the thing that might be closer to the truth even though we have brainwashed ourselves to believe the first thing.
Getting dizzy yet trying to follow this circular logic?
Get it?
Dizzy? Circular?
Okay.
Never mind.
blush
What was I writing about here?
Ummm...
Ummm...
Oh.
Yeah.
So...
I'm not sure, but I think if we keep being 'fine' when we're really not that eventually we're going to explode with our emotions.
And that won't be pretty.
Not pretty at all.
Maybe trust is the way we find a bridge over the slim line between fine and whine.
And quite possibly we should realize that whine is our own assessment and not the way other people would see the situation in our lives at all.
Fine.
Whine.
Only three letters are different.
But there's a world of loneliness and pain between the two self-perceptions.