I'm not okay

"I saw your tribute to the Lord," Prim says to me.

"What?"

"When you were doing your gratitude posts. It was so nice. It was a picture of him and then a picture of you. 10/10 great Facebook post."

I scream with laughter. 

******

Prim isn't religious. She never has been, but she did come to church with me once in Christchurch. She took the sacrament and nibbled away at her piece of bread like a chipmunk. I can't even think about it without laughing. 

I'm sure Prim thought I was crazy when I first moved in, with all my dramatic utterances and such. My favorite phrase to use is "emotionally distressed" because it sounds so archaic and hilarious. Who talks like that? No one. So I decide to. 

The problem is that when Prim and I first moved in together, she wasn't quite used to my dramatics yet. My theatre of life! So when I would walk in and say, "Prim, I'm emotionally distressed," she didn't take it as sarcasm. She took it as though I was literally emotionally distressed. 

"Kait! What's wrong?" she'd say. 

Then I would laugh. "I'm just being dramatic," I explained to her. "I'm not really upset. I'm okay." 

"Well, how will I know when you're not okay?" 

"I'm always okay. Even if I'm crying, I'm okay. It's just tears, nothing more. When I'm not okay, I will say, 'I'm not okay.' Then you'll know I'm upset for real."

And did you know that in the whole year we lived together, even though there were many times Prim saw me cry, times I told her my worries, my frustrations, there was really only one time I wasn't okay. 

It was after we watched a WWII movie. WWII movies always do me in. Probably because these movies are real stories in some way. People really suffered back then. 

When it was over, Meghan went to bed, Hillary was making food in the kitchen, and Prim was doing her homework. I was on the couch. 

"I'm not okay," I said to them. "I can't be alone right now." 

And they listened while I explained it all to them: how I believe in God, how I know he's real, but when it comes to stories like this, when I read or watch about wars, genocide, suffering-just how unbelievably cruel this world can be sometimes-that's when I can't believe. 

"It's not real," I say to them. "Faith isn't real. God isn't real. He can't be. If he was real, if he really loved us all, he wouldn't let this world be so bad. He wouldn't have let all of those people die. If he loved us, he wouldn't let us get hurt. Because I try to protect everyone I love. I don't want any of them to hurt. It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense."

"I can't handle watching people lose the ones they love. I can't handle people being left alone. It makes me want to take their place. It makes me want to die for them instead. But I can't do it. People die all around us, people will always die, people will always suffer, and I can't save them."

"And I guess I thought I always could. I thought if my heart was strong enough, if my love was strong enough, I could save people. Because that's what they teach you in church; if you have enough faith, anything is possible. So why is my faith not enough? Why can't I do anything? Why am I so useless?"

It's Hillary who comes to the rescue. "But Kait," she begins. "You're not supposed to fix everything. You're just a person. And remember what you always say? That it'll be God who comes again one day and fixes everything? That one day everything will be okay, and we'll all be happy? That's still going to happen. Maybe not now. But one day."

It's everything I've told her throughout this year. Everything I've taught her about what I believe. She was actually listening the whole time. And she's using it to comfort me now, even if she doesn't believe it herself. 

Prim agrees with her. Prim tells me that everything is going to be alright. That one day God will come and save us all. That things will be good again. 

In those moments, I'm not sure what I believe. I'm not sure if I really do know that God will come and save us all and redeem the dead. Redeem us from our sorrows. 

But I know that somehow I've been blessed with the best friends in the world. The ones who listen to me, who care about me. The ones who stay with me until I'm okay again. 

And maybe love like that is enough to believe in for now. 

Maybe love like that is enough to make things okay.