exchange

K: How are you today?
M : I'm okay
K: You always say "Okay"! The first time you say good, I'm going to jump out of my seat!

It's not socially acceptable to respond to the question "How are you today?" with "I'm a nervous wreck, I'm achey, and I have emergency medical appointments today." nor with "I haven't been sleeping well for months, so I'm still pretty tired" nor even with "I'm not feeling so hot."

I would say that I was good. If I was. Which, if you consider my 4 trips to the ER this spring, emergency surgery, nausea spanning from about january to present if you count my now overactive gag reflex, 2 chronic conditions that haven't been managed well under the stress of all of the other emergencies, miscarriage, new pregnancy, and the ear infection I've had for longer than a month now, is not highly likely.  My doctor appointments actually interfere with making other doctor appointments. I've been to at least one practitioner a week every week this month, and every 2-3 weeks during summer, and every week for all of winter quarter/ spring quarter. I have great insurance, and I've still spent about $1500 or more on care just up to this point this year.
Add to that school- tests every day, homework every day, shifts on the weekends- adding stress to home, which I'm rarely at, and therefore is neglected and dirty. And my husband returning to school- less quality time, less housecleaning, less warm meals...
Oh, and how bout the fact that I have one pair of pants that fits comfortably, and I'm just trying to be really clever to disguise the fact that I can barely wear my clothes? Superficial, but still stressful.

This isn't something I could say as I walk one direction and you walk another.
So, yes. I'm not "Good" very often.  I tend to be functional and "okay". And even though I wasn't super up to the "Okay" mark this morning, I felt constricted by societal norms to say something.

I wish that the greeting had time to have real meaning in society, but it doesn't.
It's just a greeting.
It's okay to be okay.