What if everything really is OK?

I can remember the exact moment I decided things were NOT OK. The voices down the staircase from my bedroom were scary and angry and getting louder by the minute. I was supposed to be asleep but the thunder of the argument between my parents was keeping me awake despite not being able to make out what the argument was even about. Actually, an argument implies TWO people are engaging; tonight, as with most nights this happened, my father’s raging dominated, with the occasional squeaky five-word protest from my mother. No. Things were NOT OK down there.

Later, after I moved out, a vein in my mother’s head was also not OK because it exploded and took her life just after her fiftieth birthday. Still later, it was not OK that a family dinner with my father could erupt into a screaming match as suddenly and violently and inexplicably as a rogue elephant charging through the kitchen window with its ears on fire. And it was definitely not OK the day a promise of fortunes around the corner drove me to foreclosure.

Clearly, it’s plain to see by any sane person, that none of that was OK.

Today, however, it’s 70 degrees with bright blue skies in the middle of January, and as a result, my brain has woven a tiny new neuron path labelled “definitely OK”, upon which I can see things a little differently, at least for the moment.

First, things have gotten better because I made big changes in sobriety, careers, sexual orientation, marriage partners, things that can have a significant impact on one’s OK-ness. Life is pretty darn amazingly awesome now! But, you know, I still worry things are not OK. I have never been safer, more secure, more financially, emotionally, and physically OK in my life—and yet, there it is.

What '“it” is, is a deeply excavated, well-worn groove in my brain, a Grand Canyon of negative thought patterns—and nothing more. It’s simply not real in this moment that I will run out of money or love or good reputation.

Further, even when that distinctly NOT-OK stuff was happening, I— the I with a capital I, meaning the Real Me who is a manifestation on earth of the Divine — was OK. I came out of those tough situations more in tune each time with who I really am and with a deepening of my ability to expand. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty, but I survived…and in fact, eventually, I thrived. I learned that even when you’re NOT OK, you’re OK.

And most days, but especially on warm blue-skied days like today, I remember that.