THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY - by Jhaymkay🖤

On the days we look fine.There's a particular kind of sadness that doesn't look like sadness. It looks like replying "I'm fine" when someone asks how you are. It looks like laughing at a joke you barely heard, showing up when all you want to do is disappear for a while, and telling everyone you're tired when, truthfully, you don't even know how to explain what you're feeling. Sometimes, it looks like being the person everyone runs to while secretly wishing someone would notice that you need somewhere to run to, too. And sometimes, it looks like me. Because the truth is, I'm grieving. Still. I know I may not look like it. I still laugh. I still have conversations, write my little stories, celebrate my little wins, and go about my days like life is moving exactly as it should. And, in a way, it is. The world hasn't stopped. The days keep coming, responsibilities keep calling, and life, as inconsiderate as it sometimes feels, keeps asking us to show up. But somewhere inside me, a part of me is still on April 28th. Tuesday. It's strange how a day can become so much more than a date on the calendar. How an ordinary collection of twenty-four hours can split your life into before and after. How the world can look exactly the same, yet something inside you will never quite see it the same way again. I wish I could explain what it's like to be moving forward while your mind keeps walking backwards. To be having an okay day and suddenly remember. To hear something, see something, or sit quietly for a moment, and find yourself right back there, revisiting a day you wish your mind would let you put down. Sometimes, nothing even happens to trigger it. The memory simply arrives. And there you are again. You could be laughing one minute and fighting back feelings you thought you'd managed to tuck away the next. You could have a genuinely beautiful day and still go to bed with a heaviness you cannot explain. It's a confusing thing, grief. People often talk about it as though it's a place you visit, spend some time in, and eventually leave. But what if it isn't? What if grief is learning to live in a world that continues to change while a part of you is still trying to understand something that has already happened? What if healing doesn't always mean forgetting, feeling nothing, or reaching a point where the memory no longer hurts? What if, sometimes, healing simply means learning how to carry what happened without letting it take every single thing from you? I don't have all the answers. I'm still figuring things out myself. And perhaps that's why I've been thinking so much about mental health today. Because we've become so good at looking okay that people rarely think to ask if we actually are. We celebrate people for being strong. We admire their resilience, applaud their ability to keep going, and call them an inspiration when they manage to carry burdens that would have broken someone else. But who checks on the strong ones? Who remembers that a person can be functioning and still be struggling? That someone can be grateful for their life and still have days when their mind feels unbearably heavy? Who tells them that they don't have to turn every painful experience into a lesson, every heartbreak into a testimony, or every loss into a beautiful story? Sometimes, pain is just pain. Sometimes, you don't need someone to explain the silver lining. Sometimes, you don't need to hear that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, you just need someone to understand that what happened hurt you, that it still hurts, and that you are allowed to admit it without feeling as though you're failing at being okay. Because pretending to be okay and actually being okay are two very different things. And I think we need to make more room for that distinction. We need to stop assuming that because someone has smiled today, they're no longer hurting. That because they've returned to their routines, they've found their way through their grief. That because they don't talk about what happened anymore, they've somehow stopped thinking about it. Some wounds don't announce themselves. Some battles happen in the quietest corners of the mind, where nobody can see them and where even the person fighting them may struggle to find the words. And sometimes, the person who seems to be doing just fine is simply learning how to carry something they cannot put into words. So, on this World Mental Health Day, I want to remind someone of something I'm also trying to remind myself. You are allowed to not be okay. You are allowed to miss someone, mourn something, revisit a memory, or have a difficult day even when everyone thinks you've moved on. You are allowed to be happy about something today and sad about something else at the very same time. You don't have to choose between celebrating life and acknowledging what hurts. And you certainly don't have to prove that you're healing by pretending that nothing hurts anymore. Please, be gentle with yourself. Reach out when things feel too heavy. Talk to someone you trust. Give yourself permission to grieve without putting a deadline on your feelings. And if the weight becomes too much to carry alone, please don't be afraid to seek professional support. You deserve care, too. Not just when you're visibly falling apart. Not just when you can explain exactly what's wrong. Not just when your sadness becomes convenient for other people to understand. Even now. Especially now. And to those of us who are still grieving, still remembering, still trying to reconcile the lives we had with the lives we're living now, I hope we find the grace to take things one day at a time. We don't have to have it all figured out. We don't have to rush ourselves into becoming the version of us that existed before. We can acknowledge that something changed us and still believe that beautiful things are waiting for us. Both can be true. I suppose that's what I'm learning, too. That I can laugh and still grieve. That I can celebrate a milestone and still have a day I wish I could go back and change. That I can write about healing while still figuring out what healing looks like for me. And that perhaps being honest about the pain is better than spending my life convincing everyone, including myself, that it isn't there. I'm still grieving. And I'm still here. Maybe, for now, both truths deserve a little space. So, today, check on your people. Check on yourself, too. Ask the second question. Listen to the answer. Give people room to be honest, even when the truth isn't pretty. And if you're the person who's been saying "I'm fine" because you don't know how to explain that you're not, I hope you find somewhere safe to put the words. You don't have to carry everything silently. The world may not stop when something breaks your heart, but that doesn't mean you have to pretend it didn't break. Somewhere between the person you were before and the person you're becoming, I hope you remember that you are still worthy of tenderness. Even on the days you look fine. Especially on the days you don't. A LITTLE PERSONAL NOTE 🤍 There's something else that makes today special for me. This is my 30th insight on TwoCents. Thirty. I still remember dropping my very first insight, not knowing where this little journey would take me, how many things I'd write about, or how much of myself I'd eventually find between the words. And now, here I am. Thirty insights later. I wish I could say that every word I've written came from a place of certainty, that every day has been easy, and that I've always known exactly what I wanted to say. But that's not life, is it? Sometimes, we write because we're happy. Sometimes, we write because we're curious. And sometimes, we write because there are things sitting inside us that we haven't quite figured out how to say out loud. Perhaps that's one of the beautiful things about writing. It gives us somewhere to begin, even when we don't know where we're going. And today, as I celebrate this little milestone, I also want to acknowledge the part of me that's still grieving. The part that still remembers April 28th. The part that's learning that life can keep moving while your heart is still catching up. I'm proud of myself for continuing to show up, for finding the words, for sharing my thoughts, and for making it to thirty insights. But I'm also giving myself permission to be human through it all. I don't need to have everything figured out to celebrate how far I've come. So, congratulations to me. 🥹❤️ To the first insight that started it all, the twenty-nine that followed, and all the stories still waiting to be told. And to everyone who has read, supported, engaged with, or connected with any of my insights along the way, thank you for being a part of this journey. Thirty insights down. Still growing. Still writing. Still healing, in my own time. And still finding reasons to put pen to paper, even on the days when my heart feels a little heavier than usual. Until the next one... ciao😗

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