Fine....

Have you ever asked someone how they were.. and the response is..  Fine..  but you know.. in your heart.. that Fine is not fine?  You hit the delicate line of do I probe further, or should I just leave it be.  Because if there truly was something they wanted to tell me, wouldnt they say something?  Or are they waiting for someone to inquire.  The times you hold it all together and say Fine through gritted teeth because you know if you try to open up your mouth and say anything else, the tears will start flowing and the truth will bleed out.  The secrets you are working so hard to keep inside, you know full well you are not Fine at all...  you are no where near Fine.. yet, this is all you can muster.

I saw this posted as someones status and it made me laugh.. because it was really true:

DEADLY TERMS USED BY WOMEN: 
1.FINE-This is the word women use to end an argument when they KNOW they are right and you need to shut up. 
2.NOTHING-This means SOMETHING and you should be wary. 
3.GO AHEAD-This is a dare, NOT permission. DON'T DO IT! 
4.WHATEVER-is a woman's way of saying F*YOU! 
5.THAT'S OK-She's thinking long and hard before deciding HOW and WHEN you WILL pay for your mistake...

I have been guilty of the Fine and Nothing...  and of course the Whatever..  ok and the rest of them as well.,  I do it all the time.

But its the Fine that really gets me.  When you know you arent fine, and everyone else knows you arent fine.. but its the elephant in the room.  How much do I ask, how much do I reveal.  Do most people really even want to know the depth that lies behind the Fine?  Or are they just asking out of politeness?  Kind of like Lovely weather we are having.

At the end of the day, we are all busy and consumed with our own lives and our own problems, and I know for me, I tend think, why burden someone with my problems, when I can smile, teeth clenched, and say.. .Fine.  Things are Fine, I am Fine.  Life is FINE FINE FINE.

I am trying to think back to when Fine got such a bad, negative connotation.  To me Fine is not a real answer.  Its a cop out. And yes, I am guilty of this cop out, but its still a cop out.  Its an answer to placate someone.  Its the answer you give instead of having diarrhea of the mouth and telling people what you are really feeling.

So next time you ask how I am.. how things are going..  and I say Fine..  Well they might just be that..  but chances are..   there is something lurking just behind the Fine...

Would you...

If you had a chance to go back in time and change things..  Would you?  Do you ever think about what life would be like if you had chosen a different path?  If you had picked what was behind door number two, instead of number one?  If you had the insight to go back and relive some situations of your past.  Would you?

If you could rewrite portions of your story, would you?

I recently read this book



The premise was just that.  A married woman with a daughter, goes back 7 years in the past.  She gets the chance to do it all over again.  To go back to the relationship that she thought was the one that got away.  It really got me thinking.  What if you could do that.   What if you could take the insight that you have now, and go back and relive the moments.  What if you could get through the moments that back then you thought were  big things, only to realize that they were little things.  That the fights and worries, were nothing much.

It really hit home to me.  and it made me wonder.  What if I had chosen NOT to get married, where would my life be now.  What if I had the strength to stand up and say I don't want this, I don't want to be married just yet.  I have a lot of living to do.  I wonder what my life would look like now.

Would I be the person I am today?
Would I have the kids I have today?
Would I have the same friends, job, home?

If you could take a step back and see the big picture of your life, what is now and how you got there, would you change anything?  Do you stand there and think.. hmmm.. this is not  how I pictured my life to turn out.  I can tell you honestly, that I never expected to be standing here at 38, newly divorced, starting my life over.  This time with 3 kids in tow.  Navigating the dating world as a single mom.  Learning how to be me again, learning how to be a single parent, learning how to be a divorced woman when your friends are all still coupled.  Somedays I feel like I am standing on the edge of a mountain, I envision myself looking all around, not really knowing how I got here, or where to go from here.  I am figuring it out, day by day.  But it does make me think.. would I have spared alot of people the angst that my divorce caused them?

I guess I wouldn't want to change anything that has happened to me.  It has really shaped the person that I am today.  All my ups and downs, have made me stronger than I ever realized I could be.  There are of course moments, that I call "not my finest hours".  Decisions that I made that I sometimes wish I hadn't.

I would love to be able to go back and spend more time with the people that I loved and have lost.  I would love to be able to sit one more time on my Nana's porch.  I would love to  have had one more chance to wrap my arms around her and tell her how much I loved her and appreciated her.  It would be amazing to go back and see her.

The book really got me thinking.. about the times I thought what if..  about a guy, about a job, about just about anything...