How are you doing?
Last night, after we tucked the girls into bed, Husband looked up from his perch on the couch and met my eye and asked me a question.
How are you doing?
An iteration of the question all of us get so many times a day from people we know and those we don't. Hey! How are you? How's it going? How was the weekend?
But coming from him, combined with his thoughtful glance, it was different. He really wanted to know. And instead of muttering a quick answer, as I so often do, as we are trained by society to do to move things along, I paused. I thought about it.
I don't know.
That's what I said. Three words. The truth. This has been a tricky time. Hard things are happening and brilliant things, too. I'm not drinking anything which means I'm feeling everything. And my man, my good and wildly supportive man, caught me in a thick moment, an uncertain one.
I don't know.
Another gift: He waited for me to elaborate, but didn't insist upon it. He was there with his blue eyes and big heart on our big couch, ready to talk if I wanted to, but it was entirely up to me. But I wasn't in the mood to talk. I was in a quiet place and I told him so. I'm just really tired and I'm going to get into bed with a book. I love you, babe.
And I do.
And I did.
I got into bed with a beautiful book. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. A book I began years ago, but somehow didn't finish. Life must have gotten in the way.
That's what life does. It gets in the way. It is the way.
These tough and tangled moments are part of it, guys. They contain meaning even if we can't see it yet. And there is beauty even in the blur, in the brute uncertainty, in the I don't known-ness.
And if we are lucky, if we are truly lucky, there is someone there, a kind and loving witness, who will ask the small question, so light on the lips, the question which seems like nothing, but can indeed be everything.
How are you doing?
How are YOU doing? (I really want to know.)