Last year, around this time, I wrote a guest blog post for Tracey Clark’s I am enough series. Two weeks ago, when I was stressing about all our routines changing, schools starting, work getting more hectic, I was thinking about this post. And all the other posts on my blog. Daily posts where I try to capture my family. My gratitude. Where I try to remember what’s good. Where I make myself pay attention to things I’d otherwise take for granted.
I was thinking about all this because on the Tuesday after labor day, I definitely didn’t feel enough.
No it’s not just that: I felt broken in every way.
I felt like I wasn’t enough of a mom to my kids and that my older one was acting up a bit more than I’d like and I didn’t have the tools to nip it in the bud as elegantly as I would have liked so I reprimanded him more often and more harshly than he deserved. Even as I saw it wouldn’t be effective long term.
I felt paralyzed with fear that my little one wouldn’t take to school and would just cry and cry. And that it would never ever work out.
I felt that the lunches I prepared were inadequate. Bland.
I felt stupid that I had to drag my husband along because I wasn’t sure I could figure out the new schools’ routines and drop off/pickup systems on my own. Or that I just needed him for inexplicable reasons.
I felt not enough at work when I kept asking stupid questions I should have known the answers to. When I was “discussing” things with some engineers and I had to put my foot down even as I was unsure of why. I felt like I was fighting a battle I was told to go into but when I got there I was alone. I was sinking. I was going to fail and take everyone down with me.
I felt I would never be able to find my way out.
I would never be good enough. I would never know, understand, do as well as some of my peers. I would never be the mom that had it all figured out. I could never be the wife who wasn’t unnecessarily needy.
I could go on and on. I felt like a failure and inadequate in all areas of my life. I couldn’t see any light. It was dark, dark, dark.
I was failing everything and everyone I ever cared about.
And I couldn’t see it getting better. Ever.
The day passed. But the feeling didn’t go away for a while. Even as I slowly figured things out, it dulled but it didn’t go away. It took several “better” days to squash the pain back and I know it’s there to rear its head when it finds me weak again.
I want you to know that I think it’s normal to have these days. Sometimes we feel it’s all dark. When I feel this way, I don’t even try to make sense of it anymore. I know these days come. No matter what Jake says to placate me, to show his love, I am not listening. I am not rational. It’s not about logic. It’s about losing all sense of logic.
For me, the best thing is to let myself feel it. Give Jake and others I love heads up and let them be there for me. Let them forgive me. Let them give me some space so I can slowly forgive myself, too. And make space to heal.
Because you know what? The good days always come, too. For most of us, these terrible days are rare. (Just like the euphoric ones.) And I think letting them take their course is much easier than fighting them.
That’s what I remind myself each time one of them comes to visit me. We all feel not-enough. We all strive to be loved. To be enough. To be wanted, loved, cared for. To matter. I think that’s a human need: to matter.
And we all *are* enough. Just the way we are. I truly believe that. We each have our own individual gifts in the world. Our own magic.
I think the trick is to not give in to those black days that try hide the truth and to pay attention to the millions of little extraordinary things in our life that clearly show how lucky we are. How we are enough in so many ways that matter.
Dear Karen,
How can you not feel enough? I have been reading your daily blog for sometime and I have been admiring you from a distance. I admire the way you can work while kids are playing by themselves, I admire the way you make time for your exercise every day and you push yourself to achieve your goals, I admire the way you follow your passion for art, reading, journaling. I think you are a great mum, a hard working person and a very inspirational soul. Next time you feel ‘not enough’ think of me who envies you from a distance, with everything you achieve every day while I dream of a day where I can say I have accomplished everything on my to do list today… You are an inspiration to me and I bet to so many other women who are out there feeling ‘not enough’
canim ceydusum. i love you so much.
I can totally relate, we’ve had about 3 weeks of school now and I still have not figured things out the laundry piles up horribly and doesn’t even get put away, meals have not been as they used to and my spirit is under ground Im slowly recovering tryin to not loose myself in all of this…
I’m coming out of lurkdom to thank you for this post. I’ve been in this place for the past few days and have been struggling to banish it because there is just no good reason for me to feel this way. I felt lighter reading your post and being reminded that it just happens and the best way to deal with it is to let it run its course and not fight the feeling. Thank you for the gentle reminder. I hope that you have good days soon and that they are many.
Hi Karen!
Bravo! It’s great that you were able to put it into perspective like that. I could see in your blog that you were getting yourself really stressed out over school starting. I laughed out loud when you explained that the only reason Nathaniel cried that first day was because he thought HE had to leave! Whenever we catch ourselves asking “what if” questions, envisioning the worst possibilities, that’s what happens. If you can’t kick those thoughts right out, it’s a good idea to make yourself come up with just as many best possibility “what if’s”. I think it’s automatic once you give birth to a child to have that disaster thinking kick in. And P.S., it doesn’t go away when they’ve grown either! I still am more likely to envision a horrific accident when anyone is late, rather than the much more probable answers, like they just lost track of time. I’m so glad everything is going smoothly for you though as you transition from summer to fall.
I didn’t stick to walking 🙁 but I saw my doctor today, and she suggested that riding my recumbant bicycle would be better (I was having knee pain). So we’ll see how that goes. I need to lose weight too, I already knew that but between my knees and my so-so lab results from the bloodwork, I can’t keep ignoring it… So that’ll be my focus, especially over the long winter months coming up.
Anyways, my work is crazy busy lately too, so I’d better get back to it. Have a great day, and yes, you are absolutely enough!
PatP
Oh Karen, my heart feels for you. You are so enough. Though others trying to fill you up to feel ‘enough’ isn’t what will make you feel full, adequate, etc. Like Ceyda writes that you work so hard, etc. When I was a new mom 20 years ago, I had so many days like that. The dialogue on endless loop in my head about what kind of mom is enough sent me right to dumpville. Meanwhile I was working part-time at a 2nd job while on maternity leave with my FT job, dealing with a new house, chronic pain, nursing, and more… Has it changed since then? No. The house is older, I’m older, the kids are older, they feed themselves… but I still have many days of feeling that I just I’m not enough of this or that. We have to make our sentences shorter: instead of I am not enough, I am enough we need to stop at ‘I am’. I play. I work. I cook. I am. You are. You play. etc. All of us are rooting for you. 🙂
Thank you for sharing Karen, I am having one of those weeks here. My daughter is in all day preschool now and I can’t seem to get a routine down yet, with making her lunch, dropping her off, working out, working, grocery shopping, dinner, baths and then starting the whole thing over the next day. I completely understand and emphathize. I believe you are doing important work, giving these feelings a voice and letting others know they are “normal”, whatever that means.
We all have days/weeks like this and as I read your post, I realized that we had just come out of the effects of a full moon and Mercury moving somewhere or other. I also realized that so many other people felt this happening…we all seem to have been in the dump. I mean I cried for two days straight…couldn’t figure out why.
Motherhood never came with a manual. We were handed this gorgeous kid and told to look after it for 18 or 21 years and then worry about it for the rest of our lives. I guess it’s part of the process of motherhood. One thing I know….we all go through it and somehow we all survive it.
There is no question that you ARE “enough” for a lot of people. Maybe one of your weeklong journal pages should just read “I AM Enough!” Because you are!!!!!!!!!!!
like others have said, you inspire with everything that you share here. that is enough. and so are you. thank you.
I love you. You are enough. You have enough. You do enough. You are brave, because you put these words out there at all. You are wise to recognize that these days come to pass. Just like in Scripture. Because NOWHERE does it say, “And it came to stay. . .”
We all do the best we can with what we have. And somehow, it is enough. (((((HUGS)))))
thank you for your kind kind words.
Hi Karen!
Just happen that today I don´t feel enough! Reading your post has been like fresh water for my dry land… I totally relate and feel silly for letting myself feel that way; but reading your feelings and thoughts, I know that I have to deal with it and not put myself down so much.
In other words: Thank you for sharing your personal situations with all of us!
Hugs from Spain