Good enough

Some days I just don’t feel enough.

I’m not a good enough mother.  I’m not a good enough friend.  I’m not pretty enough, or funny enough, or smart enough.  I’m not enough.

I’m tired of being the one to hold on.  I’m tired of feeling like I have to be more than I am to hold the interest of others.  I don’t want to feel like I need to work twice as many hours as I should to prove that I work hard enough.  I don’t want to feel like I need to be constantly smiling in order to be happy enough that my friends want to spend time with me.  I don’t want to feel like I need to bend over backwards and strive for perfection to be enough to love.

A few years ago if I were to bump into myself on the street, I wouldn’t want to stop and chat.  I wouldn’t want to be my friend.  So why would I expect other people to want to spend time with me?

But in the last couple of years I’ve grown so much.  I do like myself.  I would want to be my friend.  I unabashedly laugh at my own jokes.  I go to work with messy ponytails and no makeup more than I’d like to admit.  I go for the last cookie without a second thought.  But still I don’t feel enough.

There’s always this nagging feeling that I’ll be found out.  That my favourite people in the world will find out that I’m a fraud.  That I’m not enough.  That they want more.  That they want better.  And so I find I am constantly trying to prove myself, even though no one is asking me to prove anything.

I just don’t want you to work to love me.  I want you to love me because deep down in your soul, you just do.  I want you to be crazy about me, to pray that you never have to live without me.  I want to wake up every morning secure in that love.  I don’t want to question it.

Because if I have to question it…is it even there? Is it real? Is it enough? Am I enough?