Synaesthetics.

[bdar]

At this moment in my life it seems like the most difficult question I can be asked is How are you doing?

I want to state up front that I have no resentment towards those who would ask me the question. I do appreciate the question, whether out of genuine concern, curiosity, or courtesy.

I just have the hardest time answering it. I find it exhausting, oddly, in much the same way I might be exhausted by trying to tell a complicated lie, which is probably the heart of the matter. People ask how I'm doing and I tell them I'm doing fine, that things are going pretty well. Maybe a bit challenging at times, but otherwise well. And I wonder, perhaps, if I'm lying to them. Or if I'm telling them what I believe is the truth but that I'm lying to myself.

Or it could be that it takes a monumental effort on my part to take something so intrinsic and make it comprehensible in words.

How are you doing? they ask.


, I reply.

What? they ask.

And it's the act of translation that drains me.

I know how I'm doing but I'm not entirely sure how to tell you how I'm doing. But I thank you, I do, sincerely, for asking.