I Acknowledge That I Am Not Okay

And I may never be okay. And I am learning that is allowed.

I acknowledge that I am not okay.

I may never be okay — not in the way I was before. Not in the way I thought okay was supposed to look. And I am learning, slowly and painfully, that maybe that is allowed. Maybe okay was never the goal. Maybe surviving, showing up, and still choosing to be here is enough.

These last few years have been nothing like I tried to prepare myself for. Finding out my mom had acute myeloid leukemia. Watching someone you love fight something that has no mercy. Trying to be present for her while also trying to hold yourself together. And then losing her anyway.

No amount of preparation makes it hurt less. You can know it's coming and still be completely undone by it.

"The pain of losing a parent is not just the loss of a person. It is the loss of a piece of yourself you didn't know was attached to them."

We have all loved and lost. Friends. Grandparents. Aunts and uncles. Lovers who left in ways that felt like grief too. Loss is not new to any of us. But there is something about losing a parent that is different. Something that language struggles to hold.

It is the loss of your first safe place. Your first witness. The person who knew you before you knew yourself. When they go, something in your sense of self goes with them — and you are left trying to figure out who you are in a world where they no longer exist.

I am living in survival mode right now. Trying to show up for the roles I play in this life — the daughter who is still here, the person still trying to build something, still trying to be present, still trying to function in a world that did not stop moving when mine did.

Some days I do it well. Some days I do not do it at all. Both are true. Both are allowed.

"Grief is not a season you pass through. It is something you learn to carry — and slowly, over time, it changes shape."

I am not writing this because I have answers. I am writing this because I know I am not the only one navigating something unimaginable. I know someone reading this is also in survival mode. Also trying to show up while quietly falling apart. Also wondering when they will feel like themselves again.

I don't know when that is. I won't pretend that I do.

But I know that acknowledging it, saying out loud that I am not okay, is the first honest thing I have done for myself in a long time. And honesty, I've learned, is where healing starts. Not with being okay. With being real.

So if you are not okay today, you are welcome here. You do not have to perform healing. You do not have to be further along than you are. You just have to be willing to say the truth.

I am not okay.

And I am still here.

And so are you.

That is everything.

— with love, xoeko 🖤