I have perfected the public smile.
It is automatic. Polite. Warm. The one I wear on the school run, in shops, at appointments. It says “I’m fine” in a way that does not invite follow up questions. It is efficient. Reassuring. Convincing, I hope.
Most days, it is not even fake. It is just… partial. One slice of me, presented neatly, while the rest stays tucked away where it will not spill out in aisle four.
Because sometimes life feels heavy in ways that are hard to explain. Not dramatic enough to announce. Not simple enough to summarise. Just a steady weight sitting somewhere behind my ribs while I ask someone if they remembered their water bottle.
Out in the world, I am capable. I chat. I nod. I make small talk about weather, routines, normal things. I hear myself sounding like the version of me people expect. Organised enough. Together enough. Functioning.
Inside, I am often just trying to keep all the plates spinning without looking directly at how many there are.
It is strange, this split. How I can be laughing at something one minute and then, the second I am alone, feel the tiredness rush in like a wave I have been holding back. As if my body waited until it was safe to drop the act.
I do not think this makes me fake. I think it makes me human.
We cannot unravel every feeling in every space. Sometimes we choose calm over collapse, routine over release. There is school pick up to do. Dinner to sort. Questions to answer. Life keeps moving, and so do I.
But the private side matters too.
The quiet exhale when the door closes. The moment I sit down and let my shoulders drop. The staring into space while my brain slowly processes everything I did not have time to feel earlier.
This is where I admit I am tired. That things feel a lot. That I am holding more than I realised.
I am learning that both versions of me are real. The smiling one and the surviving one. The capable one and the overwhelmed one. They exist at the same time, and neither cancels the other out.
Some days I need the public smile to get through. Some evenings I need stillness and silence to recover. Both are ways of coping. Both are me, doing my best with what the day has handed me.
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