Enough

    Not Enough sits like a cold pebble in an empty stomach. It wraps around the sun like a coiled serpent, scales whispering lies, choking the warmth out of every drop of light. Not Enough crushes every endeavor under it's heel like a seedling. It reassures me, "better never to grow at all, than to grow as twisted, as stunted, and mangled as you will surely make it...YOU are not enough to make anything."

    Not Enough walked beside me. Long as my shadow. Dark as the night. Forever beside me, as long and as far back as I can remember. Not Enough perched right behind my ear and taught me that I was just like it, that I was born to fail, that I was born to be quiet and gray, I was born to be stagnant and stilted.

    Not enough held my hand when my children were born, smiling a fangy smile, leering over the hospital bed, claws in my palm. As I screamed in pain, Not Enough whispered that I would surely fail this too. Not Enough whispered that every decision I made was the wrong one, that everything I did would corrupt, would harm, would be Not Enough. Every blessing I tried to give would be gray algae, every triumph I attempted to impart would be muted, distorted, rotten.
 
    I knew that others had Enough, and that I had once had it too. I knew that my Enough was forgotten, sad, misplaced. I knew that MY Enough was pathetic, waiting, wasting away. Dead?

    A child came to me in the nighttime and whispered "Momma, I am Not Enough.".... My child whispered this into my ear and my heart filled with terror. No. NO! Not you, precious one, sweet of heart, small of size. I cannot give this to you. I threw off my blankets and tore apart my house, searching for Enough, long into the night. I knew that it was somewhere. I knew that I had it to give to the ones who I NEEDED to give it to..... and in order to give something, you must HAVE something. Frantically, sobbing and shaking, I found it in the corner, cold as a coal. Waiting.

    I breathed into Enough with the fire of the anguish of a thousand friendships never made. It sat in my palms, still icy, my hands trembling. I breathed into Enough with the rage of a lifetime of days spent not trying hard enough AND trying too hard. I breathed into Enough with the sobs of everything I had ever missed, and forgotten and let go, because I WAS NOT ENOUGH. I breathed into Enough with the thought (how dare I?) that I might be worth it... that I was strong enough to give Enough.

    Enough began to glow. Enough's glow began to grow and the warmth spread into my hands. Not dead after all, it spun, just there. I swallowed Enough, and it sat like warm stew in my stomach, the warmth spread through every part of me, soft as the morning, strong as a brown hawk. The warmth spread though every part of me in a happy tickle-laugh and burst out of my fingertips in the rainbow glow of BEING ENOUGH. Enough illuminated every corner of my being with technicolor. Enough poured out of me and wrapped around the shoulders of three precious people, heads the color of tall grass in August, freckles on noses and cheeks, eyes the color of the Pacific. It wrapped them up. Enough wrapped around us all like a quilt.

    Not enough whispered in a dark corner of the room. I listened, breathed, I breathed Enough. I walked toward Not Enough, I held out my arms. I took Not Enough in my arms. I held it, sobbing, I forgave. I whispered "You are wrong. You have always been enough. YOU are Enough."