Listening to the radio is often frustrating because I feel like the same songs are played over and over. Like most people, my drive times are pretty consistent. Two days a week I drive my son to his 6:00 p.m. practice. When we get in the car, we jokingly place bets on what songs we will hear first because they are always the same.

In the past few weeks, there has been one song in particular that I haven’t minded being on repeat. It is “I Am Not Okay” by Jelly Roll.
(If you haven’t heard it, please give it a listen, but be sure to listen all the way through.)

While singing along with the gravel, grit, and pain in Jelly Roll’s voice, I started to feel something loosening in my heart last week. I looked at my 11-year-old and sang, “I am not okay. I’m barely getting by. I’m losing track of days and losing sleep at night… I know I can’t be the only one who’s holding on for dear life.” My sweet boy laughed at me and said, “Mom, you are okay.” As I sang the rest of the lyrics to him via my in-car concert, I felt like I couldn’t stop until the last verse. When I got to the last verse, I couldn’t go on. My heart hurt too much to sing.

As we pulled into practice, I told my son to go on in. I would be in shortly.

He went in. I broke down.

In the past decade, I have cried less because I felt like it made me weak. Over the last four years, I’ve learned to just keep my head down and plow through whatever challenges pop up. (Challenges that included stupid stuff like cancer, a pandemic, avian influenza, barns burning, autoimmune disorders in my children, beloved dogs dying, friends no longer wanting me in their lives, deaths of people too young to be dying; you know the small stuff.) In the last year, I have experienced chronic pain from elbow surgery and a neck injury and frustration from doing a job that I never seem to be good enough for. In the past few months, I have had a bad taste in my mouth, a taste that I have come to learn is from the tears I have been holding back. In the last week, I realized, “I am not okay, but it’s gonna be alright.”

After I had my little cry (by “little” I mean “a big ugly sobbing in my car with only McDonald’s napkins to wipe my nose”), I decided to take a walk and clear my head. There is a culdesac off the gym parking lot, so I walked the circle. As I rounded the laps, I listened to Jelly Roll’s song on repeat. There was something therapeutic in hearing those words over and over.

It felt like facing the frustration again and again helped me come to the realization that in the end, it would all work out repeatedly. After my cry and walk, I knew I needed to do something to get the taste of sadness out of my mouth.

The hardest part for me in acknowledging the issue was the guilt I felt about being sad. I mean, what do I have to be sad about? I have a handsome, successful husband, three crazy kids, a home, a wonderful family, a job, an amazing dog, and some pretty terrific friends. What right do I have to feel sad?

When I met with my pain management doctor the next day, I told him I had been feeling really blue. He told me that chronic pain would do that, and given everything I had been dealing with, it only made sense that I felt down. He told me I was cleared to return to working out at the gym (with limitations) and recommended I try to get more sleep.
(Ha! More sleep! Who knows how to do that?)

I called one of my heroes, Wonder Woman Denise, head coach/cheerleader/nutritionist at Freestyle Fitness and Nutrition, to make an appointment and get a game plan for feeling like less of a failure. When I met with Denise, I did not expect the lose weight through the form of tears, but, dang, I shed some serious salt water. She also assured me that my feelings were valid.

We can’t necessarily change the way we feel. Emotions are genuine and there is nothing wrong with acknowledging and trying to fix them when we feel broken. Denise helped me to establish some measurable goals and hugged me. (I think I needed the hug as much as anything.)

This morning I started my day by working on those goals. Publishing this blog post is the #1 goal met. Talking to Hubby about how I have been feeling was the #2 goal met. Then I ate some bacon and a banana and drank some really good coffee. (Not an original goal, but it’s hard to beat good coffee and bacon.)

In Jelly Roll’s song, he tells us, “The pain’ll wash away in a holy water tide. And we all gonna be alright.” I’m not sure tears are considered “holy water,” but I definitely feel like I washed away some of the yuck I have been experiencing. I just had to accept the fact I needed to keep my head up and know that I am not alone.

The Intentergy message for today is that if you feel like you are stuck on the “I am not okay” replay, recognize that you are definitely not alone, find a way to voice what’s got you down, and together we can find a way to be alright.

By: Melanie A. Peters

P.S. Don’t stay stuck in “I am not okay” mode. Reach out. I always have McDonald’s napkins and I know a great circle we can walk in.