World Mental Health Day

Saturday. And today is World Mental Health Day — which I want to hold gently, because it deserves gentleness more than it deserves slogans.

Here’s what I believe, and have believed since the winter I don’t talk much about: mental health isn’t a destination you arrive at. It’s a practice, like everything else here. The check-in you actually do. The rest you actually take. The hand you warm under the tap when the middle of the week is too much. The willingness to say out loud, to one person, that you’re not okay.

That last one is the hard one. It feels like weakness and it is the opposite. Naming the weight is the first thing that makes it carryable.

So today, if you’re doing fine: check on someone who might not be. Not with a broadcast — with a text. And if you’re not fine: tell one person. Just one. That’s not too much to ask of a Saturday, and it might be the most important thing you do this month. The porch light is on. It’s on for this exactly.

Naming the weight is the first thing that makes it carryable. Tell one person. The porch light is on for this exactly.

Who’s one person you could check in on — or lean on — today?