“Sure! I’d love to get together this Friday!” I promise a friend on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, someone I love dearly informs me she was sexually assaulted at work last night. Queue hours of supportive texts and conversations. I am triggered by similar events in my own past… but my own stuff will have to take a back-seat as I boldly, forcibly stand along side her through this horror, for no one stood by my side when I needed someone.

On Thursday, I am thrown into a sorrowful rage when my young daughter tells me how sad she was that Daddy dumped her on a babysitter when she was there last weekend. Not just one night, but both nights. The nights he was supposed to be ‘fathering’ her. The nights she was looking forward to spending with Daddy. She only gets to spend two weekends a month at his house. “Why does Daddy love his friends more than me?” she pleads. My heart is ripped open as all the times I felt abandoned and unworthy as a child come rushing in. But, I put that all away and I’m strong for her… so she doesn’t end up as broken as I am.

Now it’s Friday, and it hits me. I’m not okay. I know I will be… eventually. When I’ve had a chance to sort through the anguish that has erupted in my heart. I know I’ll survive this. But for right now… I’m not okay. And now I’m not sure if I have it in me to paint a smile on my face and follow through with the promise I made on Tuesday.

I am exhausted. I need to withdraw into the safety of myself for a while. I need to ponder and reflect. I feel broken. I need to process and heal. Because I’m not okay.

And now, in addition to feeling not so okay, I feel guilty. I feel guilty about letting my friend down. I feel guilty about cancelling… again. I feel guilty that I’m not okay. I relive each painful memory of friends calling me a freak, men telling me I’m “too sensitive”, and family members suggesting there must be something wrong with me.

But, I reject these torments and insist I’m not okay! And that’s a lot on its own. Guilt always makes it so much more unbearable. So, some how, some way, I need to find a way to tolerate this… to alleviate the guilt.

This is a monumental feat. One that will require me to believe my friend when she tells me she understands and that she loves me. One that will require me to trust her when she says I am enough! One that will require that I accept her assurance that she’s perfectly okay with me not being okay. And if I can do this… if I can truly believe those things about and for myself through her eyes, and if I can let go of my need to be perceived as “having it all together”, then maybe… just maybe, I can be okay with not being okay, too.

Maybe I can give myself abject permission to fall apart when and as I need to… and not feel bad about it. Maybe I can love myself enough to accept – even celebrate – my imperfection. And if I get really brave, perhaps it’s possible that one day I can allow myself to just be whatever I am in any given moment with no need to apologize.

And if I can accept that it’s okay to not be okay, when the guilt isn’t weighing me down, and I’m not exhausting myself feeling badly or worrying about whether or not I’m enough, then maybe being okay will come more easily. Maybe I won’t have to fight so hard to recover when I get knocked down. Maybe my victory won’t necessarily have to be so hard-won.

And then, maybe some day, when life knocks the wind out of my sails as it surely will, my future self will have learned how to love me through it. I can rest easy in the knowledge that I am wholly lovable and worthwhile because of – and not despite – the fact that sometimes I’m not okay.