A Message from the Land of I Am Not Enough

“I keep telling myself life is in shambles because it all seems so good.”

-A dear friend of mine

Tues. June 20, 10:00 p.m.

Dear You,

Hey there. I’m sure you’ve been through a lot recently. More than you think you can handle sometimes. (Okay, maybe all the time.) It seems like no one is in your corner even though you’re trying your very best to be in everyone else’s.

Whether you wear your heart on your sleeve, giving people the amazing gift of vulnerability, or you paint a facade of togetherness that seems to be slipping away bit by bit… you feel alone.

And just when the sun seems to have burnt out, you see it peak over the horizon. It keeps going. And going. Andgoingandgoingandgoingandgoing.

Until there it is. A perpetual summer solstice gleams upon your face, blinding you from past misfortunes.

Or does it?

Maybe the blinding is the problem.

Because blinding closes your eyes.

And it’s dark again.

And dark brings back bad thoughts.

Back again and the sun seems to be setting.

Oh no… here they come. The crippling self doubt, the plaguing uncertainties. You glance to your left and there’s that person you would do anything to look like. You glance to your right and there’s that person who you just know is way more qualified than you.

Expectation is threatening to break free of it’s soul-cell.  It’s picking the lock, digging a tunnel, calling in reinforcements, doing everything it can to bring you back to the land of I Am Not Enough. Population: You.

But you breathe. One deep breath after another.

Breathe in the sun, out the “I can’t do this.”

Breathe in the sun, out the “it can’t be this easy.”

Breathe in the sun, out the “I am alone.”

Breathe in the now, out the past.

Breathe in the now.

You are worthy of the good that is in your life. Just because something is good, does not mean that a future fallout is inevitable. Whether you’ve earned your satisfaction or you’ve come into a strand of seemingly uncharacteristic luck, embrace it.

There is not a time limit on this phase, nor are the aforementioned stay in the Land of I Am Not Enough and your race toward the light mutually exclusive. There are peaks of light in that stay, however few and far between they may be. Cling to those pieces of light. Take a picture, write a song, hold them against your heart, stitch them into your skin because they are yours. They are not some sick, twisted joke meant to give you false hope for a brighter tomorrow that can’t possibly be coming, not now, not ever. Because hope is never false.

Hope is never false.

Hope is human, and beautiful, and real, and it pulls your feet forward from one day to the next.

“Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect on any front-and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.”                                        -Fred Rogers

It’s hard to navigate those periods when we fall short, and there are times like those described above that make you feel like your drowning, absolutely drowning. But those times with water in your lungs is when you draw on those enlightening and captivating moments of simply doing what you can.

If you let the rays of sun seep deep into your skin and the fresh sweet air of the present fill your lungs, the pure hope of this phase of life prepares your soul for battle.

Even though the battle may come (and it probably will), you can close your eyes and instead… you’ll see the sun.

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The sun will rise, and we will try again. |-/

Keep on shining,

Syd