Enough

I am enough. Three years ago, I started toying with this concept. Three words that have taken three years to finally begin to settle.

I used to think my discomfort with ‘being enough’ was due to being raised in a culture where you had to be better than the best. I mean, at 13 you wrote an exam to enter high school. This exam had the power to change the trajectory of your life. At 13. But as I talk to people and hear their stories, I’m coming to terms that I’m not alone.

Enough to me wasn’t enough. My thoughts were ‘This enoughness…does it mean that I can do things half-way and get away with it? If yes…I’m not interested. Pass please. Log kya kahenge.’ <— shout out to Hasan Minhaj. This Hindi expression is sooooo real, I use it a lot in my head, because I convince myself if I say it in a different language it’s not real and I don’t ‘really’ care what people think…guys this IS my brain.

I mean other than being really good at giving myself some rope and reassurance that cereal is ok for dinner, believing in my heart of hearts and with all my might that it is quite normal and perhaps even, a large percentage of the population feed their kids cereal for dinner on a (erhm…odd) weeknight, I didn’t really get this enough business. To me enough was not a good thing to be.

I have to remind myself every day, multiple times a day, multiple times a minute even, that I’m enough, because there’s a lot that I can consume (via media and people’s words) that can tell me otherwise. So friend…I just want to let you know…you’re enough. Especially if you already know that cereal is what’s gonna have to be served for dinner tonight. Just make it a sugary one. Actually don’t…make it a healthy one…and know that you’re already winning, because in our pantry are only sugary cereals. I know…I gotta do better…but for now…I’m enough.