How Are You Today?
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“How are you today?”
I shook my head in reply and said, “It came later today. I’m still recovering.” I’d spent the last ten minutes sitting in the parking lot outside building eleven, breathing through my daily mid-afternoon anxiety attack. “I am…” I whispered as I breathed as much air into my lungs as possible. “A beloved child of God,” I exhaled fully. “I am…. A beloved child of God,” I repeated with each deep breath in and out as my heart rate eased.
“I hate that for you,” she said with her signature compassion and grace.
I’m used to these attacks, but they’ve come later in the day recently. They’ve overlapped with when I am due to walk into the hospital for work. I’m often still shaky when I first sit down at my desk, silently praying for more respite before the pager sends me running. Most days, I hide it pretty well, but there’s no hiding from her. She sees me and knows. I’m grateful for her compassionate question.
“How are you today?”
It sounds like a normal greeting to the casual listener, but it is more than that. From her, it is a way that I am reassured that I am seen and heard each day. I’m not just what I accomplish or produce. I’m not solely the care I provide for others. I am a human, broken and healing, frail and fierce. My struggles are acknowledged, not discounted. I’m not written off as weak or a failure. I am not weak or a failure. I have my weaknesses, and I do fail, but these things are not the sum of who I am.
“How are you today?”
My anxiety is a part of me, and in some ways, I’m grateful for it. It shapes and informs who I am and how I try to live. It gives me compassion and awareness, empathy and grace. It helps me see beyond the surface of other people’s struggles to meet them in their place of need. And it sucks. It can be exhausting. I have to be mindful of how it manifests in how I clench my jaw and grit my teeth. My head and muscles ache. Sometimes, I can almost feel the cortisol moving like a toxic sludge through my veins. It’s exhausting work to still my catastrophizing brain.
“How are you today?”
That' simple question, asked by someone who sees me and cares, helps me feel safe and seen. It helps me feel safe and confident, seen and loved as I step into the unknown of my daily life and work.
How are you today?