By far, my least favorite word is “enough.” I suspect it has something to do with me spending the first 15 years of my life believing I was never quite enough.
I wasn’t pretty enough. I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t athletic enough. I wasn’t a good enough person. In general, I would say I was aiming for a life of mediocrity. It seemed like the best case scenario for me when I felt subpar in so many ways. Here is the thing. I can’t recall a single friend, parent, classmate, or teacher saying anything to cause those insecurities. In hindsight, quite a few people in those groups actively worked to help boost my self-esteem. I don’t know what fun house mirror I was looking at, but I certainly saw a distorted picture of myself as all outside sources pointed to the contrary.
Every report card and standardized test score would indicate that I was indeed more than smart enough. Several elementary school teachers actually called my parents in to tell them I was smart and learned things abnormally quickly. Instead of remembering those conversations, I focused on the art teacher who gave me a D in figure painting or the gym teacher who had me convinced that I was the only one in the class who could not tell the difference between a hop, skip, and a jump. I could do 98 things well, but I would only hear the critiques of the two that I didn't do well.
Someone recommended that my parents put me in beauty pageants as a child; my parents dismissed that idea because they recognized the practice as unhealthy. I thought it was all a cruel joke. Basically, any time someone gave me a compliment on my appearance, I thought it was a joke. I remember whining about some body part when trying on clothes at 16 because that is what teenager girls do, and a friend yelled out, “you have naturally blonde hair, blue eyes, and long legs. Nobody feels bad for you.” Maybe it was that particular friend's brutal honesty or maybe it was just the right comment at the right time, but I believed her and the fog started to lift. When I saw my reflection in the mirror that day, I finally realized I was more than pretty enough.
As the fun house mirror started to crack, other realities became clearer. I am smart. I am pretty. I am exactly as athletic as I want to be. Nobody is ever going to convince me that running 26 miles is a good time or something that I want to do for fun, but I’m pretty capable at the things I want to do: swimming, kayaking, paddle boarding. I’m just bad at pretending to care about sports I don’t actually want to play.
To be honest, I still struggle with wondering if I’m a good enough person. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten much better at building a very strong support system that works in both directions as most good friendships do. With the said, I still worry I hurt other people’s feeling inadvertently a lot despite the fact that there is very little evidence that I do that, and I still occasionally stay in a friendship that is one-sided for just a little too long.
The worst part of those 15 years? I trapped myself in that distorted mirror. It wasn’t my peers or my parents. It was a nightmare of my own making which also meant I had to do the work to stop seeing things that were never there.
Now, I’m an adult. I work with teenagers. I’m fairly good at recognizing the signs that a teenager is struggling with insecurities, and honestly, it is rare for a teenager, or anyone really, to not have insecurities. I also now realize that everyone sees their own faults far more clearly and in sharper colors than anyone else does. Likewise, because people are so busy trying to hide their own insecurities, they most likely don't notice my insecurities or yours. I do my best to tell students and former students how much more they are than “enough." Often, it feels like I'm screaming into an abyss because I remember how little I was willing to listen to other people who tried to tell me the same thing.
With that said, I try not to engage in behaviors that push forward this model of thinking that everyone has to look perfect and be happy all of the time. I take regular breaks from Facebook. I don’t edit or filter my photos unless it’s obvious because it’s a Snapchat filter. If I’m having a rough day, I don’t pretend that everything is okay. I don’t force myself to be happy all of the time just for the sake of an unhealthy image.
Normally, I post a picture that goes along with something in the blog. Today, I am posting an unfiltered and unedited photo of myself, and I only gave myself one take to do the picture. My hair is wet and unbrushed as it frequently is. I’m not wearing makeup. And I’m wearing a University of Pittsburgh long sleeve t-shirt because there is about a 90% chance that at some point in the day, I am wearing something that denotes I’m from Pittsburgh. When I look at the picture, I see someone who has gone through some difficult challenges and emerged from each of them stronger and kinder. I see someone who is smart, capable, brave, witty, kind, and pretty. And to be honest, it really only matters what I see in that picture.
For anyone who is reading this and wondering if you are “enough,” I assure you that you already are. I also know that it’s not enough for me to believe that. You need to believe that about yourself. Be as kind and forgiving of yourself as you would be to other people. I wish I had learned to quit being so hard on myself much earlier, and I kind of wish the word “enough” didn’t exist.
I obviously wrote today's entry.
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