OK

exclamation
used to express assent, agreement, or acceptance

adjective
[predic.]
satisfactory but not exceptionally or especially good; (of a person) in a satisfactory physical or mental state; permissible; allowable

adverb
in a satisfactory manner or to a satisfactory manner; [in singular]
an authorization or approval

verb (OK's, OK'ing, OK'd)
[with object]
sanction or give approval to

Origin:

mid 19th century: probably an abbreviation of orl korrect, humorous form of all correct, popularized as a slogan during President Van Buren's re-election campaign of 1840; his nickname Old Kinderhook (derived from his birthplace) provided the initials

http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/OK?q=Ok

________________________________________

I come upon the question over and over again, generally when I'm already anxious. In the anxiety, I ask "Am I OK?" and when a racing heart with a pulse I can feel travel out to the edges of nails and hair, a flushed face, odd muscle movements, and sometimes deep body pain replies, too many times I answer, "No. I am not OK." 

For about a month, I've been experiencing a lengthy, seemingly generalized anxiety punctuated by crippling panic attacks lasting anywhere between a few minutes to two days. I certainly don't feel OK. 

Here's what's tricky: as of late, when I don't feel OK physically, my body brings back two periods of time in my life (it used to be one). The second period of time returns first. The tricky part? The not-OK time pulsing its way through is a calendar period of time I am coming to over these next few months. 

For the first time since the initial diagnosis, I approach my CT scan not having had one for a year. The appointment with the oncologist is scheduled for Friday morning,  June 21st. It has lined up feeling like the year I was diagnosed. That Friday (though I'm finished with the MA & MFA degrees) a new group starts the Wilkes University Creative Writing Low-Residency program. The Friday I started my degree, back in 2009, I left work on a half day, and received the call while walking to the car that the first test, a chest xray, was abnormal.

Now, mind you, I know this is not the same, yet it feels very familiar and in the familiarity some of the fear hangs out. Saturday morning, the appointment for the CT scan arrived and so I'll need to call to change it this week as, is typically the case, they've plopped it in the middle of the workday. When I do schedule the scan, I'll shoot for early June so, with the grace of the universe, the results will be OK, and so too my tough months of June, July, and August.

The panic and anxiety runs much, much deeper than the cancer. As I fall into feeling physically like a failure (when I'm not eating well, when I'm not going to the gym, when I'm not getting enough sleep, etc.), not only does the feeling of being threatened by cancer return, but also the feeling of being threatened much earlier in my life. When I see or read about terror, I'm folded in to the story, though circumstances may or may not echo my own. The sense of suspension is the same...the waiting for it to pass.

And so, I was asked two questions related to this anxiety for which my answers feel particularly telling. The first had to deal with how I was getting through the panic and anxiety. Typically, I need to think to answer questions, but in the moment I answered "I get small and quiet" I recognized how much is embedded in my body in ways no thinking need be involved. 

The second question dealt with how I got through the day when I heard about the Sandy Hook shootings (this not because I was in any way directly impacted, but rather because of the familiarity of sadness and terror). Again, I didn't have to think. That day, I cried...hard and in quantity.  I do my best not to cry most times, but despite my best efforts, sometimes it pours out anyway.  As I've said many times to many people, I am a particularly ugly crier.

Here's an interesting connection or three:  (1) One can be small and cry, but crying (the kind we likely all need at one point in time or another) cannot be quiet. 'Quiet' crying looks like something quite different than a good cry. To be safe, I need to be small and be quiet.  (2) The worst of the anxiety started around the time I went to a chiropractor for the first time. It heightened with the use of a tool on my back and neck that makes a cracking/cranking noise that reminds me of the cracking/cranking of the tool used during my bone marrow biopsy, an experience that itself reminded me of an uncomfortable experience from when I was little. (3) The whole process of this intense anxiety perpetuates itself- if I can't sleep, I'm tired and if I'm tired, everything seems worse, so I eat more and eat poorly and don't make it to the gym, so I beat myself up and eat poorly and too much and while I'm trying to feel physically better, I feel physically worse.

What's remarakble are all the ways we can and can't be OK. As the definition points out, OK shoots below good or great. That I am shooting at OK in no way means I want to settle, rather it is an acknowledgment that sometimes before we can shoot higher, we need to come back to balanced...we need to simply be AND, more importantly FEEL OK.  To feel OK, I probably need to cry and somehow need to feel less vulnerable and embarrased by how badly I'm fighting against letting this anxiety be.  I'm spending a great deal of energy trying to will it away...trying to be small and quiet while I wait for it to pass over. Here's hoping that time is coming...