[enough]

This is a hard one to write. I've been working on it for over a week. It might be too much to say for now, but I'm going to try.

If you're like me, it doesn't matter how often you hear something: it won't sink in until you're ready to claim it.

The luckiest and wisest of us are always ready to hear something helpful. But I'm neither lucky or wise, so it really takes a hard hit to my pride and happiness before I'll even consider learning. And that sucks. Five weeks turns to six without any visible change. My attitude is poor, this situation is awful, and sometimes it's still too much to breathe over the lumps in my throat. But as much as I hate all those things - and have every right to admit that they're awful - I believe that I can make friends with them. I can learn to love them like your mom learned to love such an ugly baby. (oooooh, snap!) Hopefully, someday I'll even be grateful for trials, since I recognize that it takes this much pain for me to be willing to change. And I want to be the kind of person who changes. Nothing else could possibly drive me to do this type of internal work, so I'll hate it and take another step.

I've been thinking a lot about the word enough. Specifically, in the context of: Emily being enough for ________________.

I already wrote about how I discovered that I have lived my life as a fear-driven person. It might have surprised you, because I've always been told I projected confidence. Someone even told me this week that I "intimidate them so damn much." I had to laugh, because I've been reeling in the revelation that I lack basic courage and boundaries. [Walker Percy wrote about how we can surprise ourselves in Lost In the Cosmos, if you're interested in the subject.]

The past several months in particular have been filled with fears. Fears of not being enough for my family, my friends, my job, my romance, my church, my dreams, my city, and my God.

I kept trying to be fun enough, kind enough, generous enough, self-controlled enough, patient enough, fit enough, strong enough, sexy enough, educated enough, woman enough, diligent enough, faithful enough, smart enough, good enough, beautiful enough, spiritual enough, enough enough...

I talked to various people about the specific enoughs in my life. I thought the problems were in my relationships, my job, my experience, my history, my knowledge... But really, all of that spinning around the different spheres of not being enough were because I wasn't willing to confront the idea that I might not be enough. Emily: not enough for life, existence, the world, anything.

Those specific fears were evidence of a deeper, central, and universal human fear: I am not enough. Period. No fill-in-the-blank. No prepositional phrase.

And that's an awful thought. I know few people who have been strong enough to admit that question exists, let alone face it, accept it, own it, grieve it, and heal. The only people I truly admire, though, are those who have done just that. And I believe now that, regardless of how anyone else chooses to ignore or embrace that question, I am going to. I believe facing that statement and my own powerlessness is the only way I can find wholeness. I'm finally in enough pain to start doing it.

It's crushing to not be enough.

Really, truly, gut-wrenchingly, devastatingly, powerlessly, impossibly, adverbially, crushing. I am in no way denying that.

But it's debilitating to spend life trying to be enough.

Because what if, maybe, I was going about this all wrong. What if being enough isn't the ultimate goal of my existence? What if, in all of this trying to be enough, I've been seeking the unattainable thing in an impossible manner? What if I've been trying for something I never had to try for? What if that pressure was never mine to take for myself? What if I don't have to be enough? What if Love is just waiting for me to accept it? What if Love, in fact, shows up best in the midst of that very act of recognizing that I am not enough? What if by admitting: I AM NOT ENOUGH to the impenetrable heavens, I might actually find them opening?

My name means 'Diligent One,' and I've always lived under the label-name that I just have to work harder to achieve anything. And while slacking off isn't the answer, letting go is.

Because the one thing I really want: LOVE, cannot, by it's very nature, be earned. It may be accepted, but it cannot be forced or bought or manipulated. And for me, I can start accepting LOVE the minute I realize that I am not enough, that I never had to be, and that all my attempts - even at good things - brought me no closer to ENOUGH.

Here's the craziest thing of all: when I stop trying to be enough and I am loved in my not-enoughness, that's where I find the ability to love, give, have fun, and be a kind, generous, fit, self-controlled, patient, strong, sexy, educated, diligent, faithful, smart, good, beautiful, spiritual, and yeah, enough woman. And I find more of that ability than I ever did while I thought all those things would get me enough-ness.

Because Jesus is enough. Because God's love for the world is enough. Because God's love for me is enough.

So I just get to be me. My identity is no longer consumed with being enough. And I don't have to demand any other human be enough to mask my own not-enoughness. It might show up now and then, but I can recognize that urge to "be enough" for the lie that it is, and continue healing. I don't have to be enough for you, my family, my friends, my job, my romance, my dreams, my city, or my God.

I just get to be me. Silly, ridiculous, free, friendly, small, diligent, strange, loving, fit, clever, average, learning, creative, sexy, confident, fantastic, intelligent, strong, lovable, smart, flawed, beautiful, not-enough me.

And that might be the coolest thing I have ever been ready to learn.