Fine.

"I'm fine."
I am convinced that this is the lie that is told the most on a daily basis; I am convinced this is the lie we tell ourselves more than any other.
This is the lie that I have unknowingly been telling for the past month.
It's just a job. Hey, maybe I can just stay at home and write. Everyone else thinks I should start popping out some babies--I could do that. I am 27 after all.
I listened stoically to everyone else's worries; I watched as friends packed up their offices for the last time. No tears. I even put on this front of, "I think I'm going to enjoy staying at home for a while; may even start up the Ray clan."
I rock at this. All my counselor sessions worked. I have got this together. 
But that's where I was wrong. Fast forward to Sunday.
We got a new puppy [more on that another time]; the next day I got a stomach bug that I have been fighting all week. I sat on my knees in the bathroom and I lost it. I called my mom and talked in one of those I-can't-breathe cries that she probably hasn't heard since I got dumped in college. It went something like this:
"Mom, I bought a dog and I don't know why I did that. I'm afraid she's going to change Fiona. I love Fiona. I feel like she's trying to fill this void. I have so many voids in my life right now. I lost my job. And I'm losing my friends. And everyone wants me to have babies. And I don't know if I'm ready to have babies. All my friends have babies. How can I have babies if I can't even handle a second puppy? I can't stay at home and just write. I just can't."
Yeah. It wasn't pretty. And it was pretty incoherent. But it opened my eyes.
It's OK to mourn a job; there's nothing shameful about that. It's a part of you; it's who you are 80% of your day. You will make jokes; others will say they're practicing "Would you like fries with that?" People will walk by and say things like, 'Ya'll hang in there now!" with phony laughter free of charge.
But behind all the "fine"s is a hurt I have never known before; it is truly its own type of loss. It's hard to explain; and it almost makes you feel selfish because you are grieving something intangible; something that doesn't get a memorial or flowers.
I'm a little late to this part of the game; many others have already dealt in their own ways. But I needed to start the healing process. While I wouldn't have necessarily chosen the cold bathroom floor while vomiting, God knows that sickness is the only time I am pathetic enough to be transparent and real.
And to realize that admitting you're not "fine" is the first step in actually being that way.