As Taylor Swift Would Sing- I Might Be Okay But I'm Not Fine At All

There’s something people don’t often talk about when you lose someone you love deeply. They tell you time will heal, that you’ll find your way again, but no one warns you about the days when you’ll say “I’m okay” because it’s what people want to hear, even though inside, you feel anything but fine. That’s where I am right now—living in the space between okay and not fine at all, feeling completely untethered.

Laura was my anchor. Since 1985, when we first became friends, she was there, through every chapter of my life. Our friendship wasn’t perfect, but it was real and enduring. Even when life pulled us in different directions, we always found our way back to each other. And in the last few years, as Laura battled cancer, we grew even closer. Those conversations, the laughter, the shared memories—they grounded me, and when she passed, it was as though my tether to something solid in this world was severed.

I’ve come to realize that grief isn’t just about missing someone; it’s about the way you lose yourself when they’re no longer there. You feel unmoored, drifting through your days, trying to find something to hold onto, something to make sense of the new world you’re living in—a world without them.

Books have become that something for me. Laura loved books, and we shared that love together. In her honor, I started the “Books That Travel the World” initiative, leaving books at airports, train stations, coffee shops—places where they could find new homes, new readers. It’s a way to keep her memory alive, to let her love for reading continue to touch the lives of others.

But even as I leave these books behind, hoping they find someone who needs them, I can’t help but feel this deep sense of loss. It’s bittersweet, doing something she would have loved, knowing she’s no longer here to share it with me. It’s like I’m doing all the right things to honor her, but I’m still untethered, still searching for a way to make peace with the empty space she’s left behind.

Some days, it helps to imagine her smiling at the thought of one of her favorite books traveling the world, passing through the hands of people who need a bit of comfort or escape. Other days, I feel the weight of her absence more acutely, and the simple act of leaving a book behind becomes a painful reminder that she’s not here to pick up the phone, to laugh with me, to talk about the stories we love.

Grief is strange like that. It’s not something you “get over,” despite what people might say. It’s something you carry with you, learning to live with the weight of it. And in those moments when it feels too heavy to bear, I remind myself that it’s okay to not be fine, to feel untethered, to drift for a while.

Maybe I’m not fine, but I’m trying. And in the end, maybe that’s all any of us can do—keep going, keep honoring the ones we’ve lost in the best ways we know how, even when it hurts.

So, if you come across one of the books that have been left behind, know that it carries with it the spirit of someone who loved deeply, lived fully, and treasured the stories that connected us all. It’s a small part of Laura’s legacy, traveling the world, touching lives, just as she did mine.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough for now.

Conclusion: Feeling untethered is part of the journey, a sign that we’ve loved someone so much that life without them feels incomplete. But in sharing stories, in passing along books, we create new connections, new tethers that remind us we’re never really alone. Even in our grief, we’re still capable of love, of finding meaning, and of sharing that with others.