Notes on Not Being Fine

"I'm fine" buys us distance. It’s a paper-thin barrier between our raw nerves and everyone else's expectations.

My neighbor catches me hauling groceries out of my Kia. A paper bag splits at the seams. A jar of salsa shatters on my concrete driveway.

"You okay?"

She asks.

"I'm fine."

Red sauce pools around my boots. My hands shake. I haven't slept in four days.

We trade "fine" like currency. Spend it at work meetings. Bank it for family dinners. Cash it out in therapy waiting rooms. "Fine" buys us distance. It’s a paper-thin barrier between our raw nerves and everyone else's expectations.

My coworker Sarah brings donuts to the office after her divorce.

"How're you holding up?" I ask.

"Living my best life!" She arranges glazed circles in a spiral. Her lipstick bleeds at the corners. "These are dairy-free. Sugar-free. Gluten-free."

She doesn’t eat one. Nobody does.

At spin class, the instructor tells us to manifest abundance. To push through pain. To choose joy. Thirty people pedal nowhere in synchronized suffering. We paid for this.

My therapist asks why I can't say no.

"I can say no," I tell her. "Watch." I clear my throat. "No."

She writes something in her notebook. "Now say it to someone who needs something from you."

The sloppy truth sits like that broken jar of salsa. A mess I can't contain. Every time someone asks how I am, I step around it and pretend it isn't spreading.

Last Tuesday, my friend Uchenna called. No hello. No preamble.

"I can't do this anymore," she confesses.

"Do what?"

"Pretend I've got my shit together. I'm not okay. I haven't been okay for months."

Uchenna’s the kind of person who moves through the world like it belongs to her. Effortless posture, clean lines, silver rings catching the light when she lifts her glass. She never fidgets. Never spills her drink.

We stayed on the phone for two hours. We didn’t fix anything. We took turns naming what hurts.

Later that week, I ran into Uchenna at the farmer's market. We split a loaf of sourdough and talk about nothing. And everything.

"Thanks for not being ‘fine’ with me," they said.

I nod and break off another piece of bread, letting the crumbs fall where they will.

The geese return each October, unseen until their calls pierce the dark. No maps. They navigate by starlight and magnetic fields I'll never understand.

I read somewhere this is called a skein, like yarn unspooling across the sky. Each bird drafts behind another, sharing the burden of wind resistance. When the leader tires, it falls back while another takes point.

I watch them through binoculars while sitting in my car at the wildlife refuge. The ranger, Paula, taps my window.

"You're the third person I've found crying in their car this week," she says.

"Bird watching." I lie. “It gets me every time.”

"They mate for life," she tells me. "If one gets sick, the other brings them food. If one can't keep up during migration, the other slows down."

"What if both get tired?"

"The whole flock adjusts. Nobody gets left behind as they follow their compass.”

I like to think about birds with compasses. Our compasses began with a stone. A piece of earth that loved the north so much it refused to point anywhere else. The ancient Chinese called it loving stone—a magnet that guided ships through darkness and caravans across deserts. The French use the same word for magnet as they do for love. Makes sense. Love attracts. We show up because our hearts point north, steady as stone, telling us which way to go.

I drive home in the dark thinking about magnetic fields and internal compasses pointing toward what we need. About birds who know when to leave and when to stay. How they trust the flock to carry them when their wings give out.

My phone lights up. A text from Uchenna. "Brought soup. At your door if you want it."

I want it.

My grandmother's church ladies show up with casseroles when someone dies. They arrive in shifts, lining fridges without asking. Nobody talks about grief. They talk about the evils of plant-based butter, and who uses more paprika in their egg salad. They stay until the dishes are done.

For Uchenna’s Nigerian family, entire villages gather to cook for weddings. Everyone brings something. Rice. Vegetables. Spices. They prep for days. The work of feeding each other matters more than the food.

Uchenna texts: "Dinner at mine. Bring nothing."

I bring wine anyway. I find Uchenna in the kitchen chopping onions. Paula from the wildlife refuge stirs a pot of something that smells like cardamom. A neighbor arranges cookies on a plate.

"I thought you said bring nothing," I tell Uchenna, as I look at the other people’s offerings.

"I did. They all ignored me too."

We eat cross-legged on the floor. Pass plates without asking. Fill glasses before they empty. Nobody says "I'm fine" or "living my best life" or "manifesting abundance."

We eat. We pour more wine. We hold space like geese holding formation.

When I stand to leave, Uchenna packs leftovers in containers she swears she doesn't need back.

In November, the geese leave. But traces remain: fallen feathers, worn paths, hollows in the grass where they slept. Paula tells me they'll return to the exact same spots next year. An internal compass pulls them back to where they were held.

Last night, I found a container on my porch. Inside: Sarah's gluten-free donuts. They taste like cardboard, but I also taste the love.

This afternoon, I leave soup at Uchenna's door.

Paula drops off bird guides at my car window.

We're building a compass of care, point by point, person by person. A skein of our own.

No one says they're fine anymore. We say: I'm tired. I'm scared. I'm here.

We say: Bring nothing.

We bring everything.