Read this if you’ve ever felt “Good Enough…But…”
Ok friends, so I know it seems like I am slightly deviating from my typical lifestyle genre, but it’s still parenting and family-related, I promise.
And hear me out, this is something that I really feel that the majority of you need to hear. Because really, probably a lot of you have been there. Just by you being here I already know that on some level you relate to this feeling.
It’s a terrible feeling. It’s a feeling that we can get suffocated in. A feeling that we can emotionally, spiritually, and even physically, drown in.
It’s the feeling of feeling “good enough…but.”
So, what do I mean by that? For the majority of you, you probably already know this feeling all too well. You may not be able to describe it, but you already know exactly what I’m talking about.
For those of you that may need a little bit more explanation, it is similar to feeling simply “ok.” Not incredible, not exceptional, not stupendous. It’s almost like feeling you do nothing more than exist. Not impressing anyone, not excelling in any trait. You’re just good enough, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.
For the majority of us, this feeling has built up thickly over the course of our growing. Often starting in childhood with comments like, “you did great on your math exam, but you still missed these four questions.”
The majority of these comments aren’t meant to be malicious, or detrimental. They are just deemed as constructive criticism. Often these comments do actually help us to push harder and achieve our goals. But what happens when we hear these comments repeatedly, throughout our growth and development? Or even into adulthood?
If you are in this boat, you aren’t alone. I’m right there with you. Sailing away on this rocky sea of confusion and guilt, trying to navigate the rocky road of frustration all while keeping your sanity.
Let me let you in on a little secret. Your sanity, the one you are trying to work so hard to maintain; you can’t keep it. Not if you keep up this feeling too. Not if you let this feeling win.
For me, this has been a huge pathway. I won’t try to say a journey, not yet at least, because it is something I have just started on. I haven't even fully begun my quest yet, but I have at least taken the first steps on the trail. I definitely won’t say I have all the answers, but I can at least leave you with what lead me to this fork in the road.
At first, I started to notice this gut feeling deep in my soul that all of my accomplishments, no matter how big, were without merit.
Then mainly started to rise when I was working towards my masters and had numerous people say things along the lines of “Well I could do that too if I had all the help you have.”
This drove me crazy. With comments like that, I felt everything from anger, to sadness, and all the way to guilt. The worst part was I really had no idea why it bothered me so bad. It wasn’t like these comments were meant to hurt me or leave me feeling less than.
But it did.
It was like they didn’t mean to hit me with their car, but it still doesn’t take away the broken arm and concussion.
So why did it bother me so bad? I was I spending late nights over this repeating in my head over and over again.
Because I had felt this emotion before, repeatedly, and after years of blocking it all out, it was finally coming to the surface.
Because these comments made me feel the same way as numerous comments I had heard or scenarios I had lived through my entire life.
Things like, “Dinner was great, but the veggies could use more salt.” – geez.
Or after-hours scrubbing my kitchen, only to have the counter re-wiped just to “get the spots you missed.”—Ouch.
It’s also very similar to “Yeah you’ve worked so hard on the house, but I bet if a person got down on the floor with a scrub brush they could get that paint off.” – Seriously now?
It reminded me of making the bed, just to have it stripped and remade according to different standards. – Double ouch.
And ultimately it is the same feeling that a 6th-grade girl felt when she came home sobbing because the entire sixth-grade class decided it was ok to moo at her in the hallways because she was chubby. Only to come home and turn to the one person whose opinion mattered more than anyone and ask, “Am I fat?” and to be told “No you’re not fat. BUT you are overweight, BUT (there’s that word again) we can fix that.”
The fix wasn’t counseling or a nutritional therapist, it was a diet of chicken breast and iceberg lettuce with vinegar.
It was the same feeling of knowing that my mother loved me but still wasn’t willing to fight her demons and give up her drug addiction or abusive men to keep me.
Because the truth was, I was Good Enough, BUT I still had room for improvement.
Which ultimately translates, to NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
That’s why those comments hurt me so bad. Why those seemingly innocent scenarios caused me so much pain because, in the end, it is just another slap in the face of that 6th-grade girl who struggled with her weight, and shoves to that little girl left wondering why she wasn’t good enough to keep.
This took me a few years to figure out the why, and now I’m moving on to the healing phase. This is really scary. Terrifying actually. But it’s time I put my head above the water. I’m sure I don’t have all the answers, and I know this is the one part of my life I won’t be able to schedule or set a timeline for, but I know that this is all part of the process. This is not just for me either, this is for them.
My littles. The cycle ends with me. Because my children will ALWAYS be good enough.
Bring home C’s on the report card? Still good enough.
Fail the driving test the first time? Still good enough.
Don’t go to college. Still good enough.
Screw up, as I’m sure they will, as I have done many times. STILL. GOOD. ENOUGH.
And if you are feeling these feeling too, I’m reaching out my hand to break the surface of that wave you’ve been riding, because, in the end, we are all in this together. I want you to know that you are never, ever alone.
So, if any of this rings true to you, and maybe you might be relating a little bit too hard, I have just a few things to say to you.
You ARE Good Enough. No if’s or but’s.
But I will add a few and.
You are Good Enough and Brave.
You are Good Enough and Strong.
You are Good Enough and Talented.
You are Good Enough and intelligent.
You are Good Enough and beautiful.
You are Good Enough, and so many other things, but most importantly, you, my dear, are good enough AND you matter.
And I am so damn proud of you.
