On Being Fine

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Fine (adj.) 1. Satisfactory or Acceptable, though not exceptional.

How often have you answered the question How are you? With fine, thanks, when you were anything but fine? When you were barely holding it together?

I’ve said it more times than I can count — to colleagues, friends, family, and strangers. At some point, fine stopped describing how I felt and started defining who I was.

After my divorce — I’m fine, thanks.

After the fire that destroyed our house — I’m fine, thanks.

After my parents died — I’m fine, thanks.

What lies beneath this small word we use so reflexively? A word that builds a wall between ourselves and others. A word so easily accepted as accurate, even when it’s clearly not.

For me, fine is an unconscious response, automatic, shorthand for I don’t trust you or feel safe sharing how I really am. Or sometimes it is less complicated, not about the other person at all, and simply means I don’t know how to be if I’m not okay.

But where does this discomfort with not being okay come from?

I learned at an early age not to trust my emotions, a byproduct of a childhood where my feelings were not validated or acknowledged. My parents’ lack of attention reinforced the cornerstone of my identity—self-reliance. Trusting others with the truth of how I feel requires emotional safety that I don’t often possess.

I am not lying when I say I am fine. I am merely being who I was conditioned to be.

Identity is formed not only by what is present but also by what is absent. We shape our narrative identities with both information and white space. Creating stories about who we are, how we got here, and where we are going. These stories require coherence to support our identity. When they start to wobble or unravel, we fight to maintain the through line, even if the truth is that the story we have been telling ourselves no longer holds us.

I’m fine, keeps my story tidy. It protects the version of me that others expect. But what is the cost of always being fine?

It’s authenticity. It’s connection. To always be fine is never to be truly known. It keeps others safely at a distance, behind the wall I built, making it easy for them to accept my answer at face value. Neither of us has to navigate what lies behind the wall. They don’t have to ask, and I don’t have to feel. It’s safe. Predictable. Contained.

Fine may be the most overused four-letter word I know.

It is a superficial answer to a superficial question. When we ask someone how they are, in the grocery store line or at the yoga studio, we don’t really want to know, and they don’t expect us to.

It’s a ritual, politeness, a mutual agreement to stay on the surface. It keeps the conversation neat. Manageable.

But what happens when the narrative no longer fits? When I’m fine becomes impossible to sustain? My discomfort with not being okay runs deep. If I don’t know how to be when I’m not okay, how can I expect others to understand how to be with me?

These days, I’m learning that not being fine isn’t failure. It’s growth. It’s what happens when I loosen my grip and make room for feelings: fear, loss, joy, and truth.

I’m practicing not being fine.

I’m practicing being real.