Okay

One part story

"It's okay to not be okay. If I know anything, no one really is okay," he told me. "Everyone has problems. Even the happiest people, you know? They may have a smile on their face everyday for the outside world, but in their own little personal world, everything is coming down and crumbling. They need to put on a mask to reassure everyone that they're okay. That nothing is wrong. That mask is called happiness, you see," and he paused right there to look up at the sky. We were sat on a bench in the park, he asked how my day was going, and I confessed that not everything was okay. That's how he started on this huge ramble.

"Robin Williams. Do you know him?" I nodded somberly, which was a signal that he could keep going on. "Well, take him for example. I don't know much about him, but he was a funny guy. Probably a comedian or something. He committed suicide, no? He always smiled for everyone to reassure everyone that everything was going to be okay for him. Though, since he committed suicide, we can all infer from it that nothing really was okay for him, and it was all going downhill. I don't even know if anyone knew why. I didn't pay much attention to those things. Just that he seemed happy, and one day, he just decided to end it."

"Was he putting on the mask of happiness?" I asked, obviously knowing the answer, but this man seemed to have even better answers than what I could have ever come up with.

"Of course. Under that mask was a broken face. Broken smile, for the most part. So that mask helped him have the most fake,yet somehow genuine smile anyone could ever have. Through the mask he only saw gray, but couldn't let anyone know that. You can't really tell if anyone is sad or not unless they show it." he answered, and I nodded. "Listen, kid, I'm not trying to tell you that people have it worse than you. Everyone has bad days, and many, many people just experience their bad days differently. Everyone has different bad days. Sometimes, to some people, bad days are normal. It's just like any ordinary day to them – because they got used to it. That's not a good thing, you know. Getting used to it. That's probably the worst thing you can do with bad days."

"Why isn't it good to get used to bad days? Doesn't that mean you get stronger?" I inquired, this time, not actually knowing the answer.

"Well," he started, "It may make you stronger,but it could make you emotionless. You'd have to turn off all your emotions with all your willpower to make sure you don't cry. Sure,that would definitely be a talent, but you would never be the person you used to be. If your life ever got better, if you ever recovered from a horrible life, you wouldn't remember the person you used to be. Especially if someone had a problem in their life from early childhood or something life that, maybe twelve years old, and they recover at... twenty one years old, would they every know who they used to be? Heck, they were so young, maybe they didn't even know who they are. They would definitely not even know who they would be. Who they are. Isn't the idea of that really sad?"

I nodded for the third time that conversation. "That does seem sad. Not knowing who you are. Not having any idea of who you would have been without having that stupid problem in your life.Imagining if you would have been a good person or a bad person.Imagining the way your life would have been, imagining how many things would change. Not having any idea of where to fit in, because you have no idea of who you were." I responded.

He chuckled lightly. "You're talking so much that you might as well be me. Where did all the words come from?" he asked.

'Real life situations,' I thought, but didn't say."Just thinking really deeply. Also, I think that when people are around you, they start talking too much, too," I grinned.