OK.

I have only just come to realise the significance of two letters in the alphabet, which, when put together, side by side, form one of the most commonly used responses in the English language. OK. Although at first I saw this simply as a throw away line when mum would ask how school was or someone was explaining a concept that was not remotely interesting, as I have stopped to think about what it actually means and how many times it has appeared in my thoughts during my deepest and most desperate moments, it would seem that these two letters may have more serious connotations. For what does it mean to be OK? Okay means that we are coping; it means that even if things aren't at their most ideal, we are handling it and accepting it. Okay, to me, suggests a sense of deeper contemplation, and provides a satisfying answer often accompanied by a breath of relief. Okay suggests the worst is over.

For a perfectionist, however, okay is also a fine and delicate point that lies between order and catastrophe. After all, if something is not okay, then that is exactly what it is -- not okay. One cannot escape, one cannot breathe, one cannot be content with the current state of affairs. Hence, the incessant statements that appear in my mind -- I am okay, I am not okay, life is okay, life is not okay, things are okay, things are not okay -- have greater implications than the flippancy in which we use such an adjective would suggest. With this word balanced on such a fine line and being so closely related to one's ability to cope with a given situation, it feels on occasions, that simply being okay is the line that separates life and death. Am I being too dramatic? I have found myself saying lately that, even when bad things happen, all you can really do about it is find it within yourself to "be okay"; to find a way to deal with it. And that is it, because in the end, being "okay" is the only way we will ever get through all this. It is the only way we will stay alive through all this because we have to find a way to convince ourselves that it is all worth it, that we have a reason to keep going and that we can keep going.

For now, all I can do is take each day as it comes. As for today, today I am okay.