Enough

“That’s enough!” 

I often heard this in my childhood, shouted from somewhere across the house by my exasperated Mum or Nan, pushed to the limits of their patience by mine and my cousins’ shenanigans. Bickering amongst ourselves. Little egos vying for shreds of recognition from one another. 

See me! Value me!

In a group full of love-hungry children, there was never enough to go around. 

Enough is an intangible thing, but in certain scenarios we know with certainty what is, and what isn’t.

“Nah, I don’t have enough.” – Looking back to the table with a grimace, putting your wallet down. 

“A bit more-ugh-” – The pressure from a masseuse on a trigger point. 

Hard figures and strong feelings. 

But what about me? How do I ever know if I’m enough? Or if the things I create are?

When I write something I have to decide when it’s done, even if it feels incomplete, because I could edit it forever and never be sure if it’s right. So how do I decide when I’m enough? Like everyone I aspire for more – to improve, and learn, and grow, but do all of those things need to coalesce together to finally complete me? Or will the peak always be just out of reach?

Am I enough yet?

I tell myself that I am enough, but I don’t really believe it.

I’m not healthy enough, productive enough, smart enough, complete enough. Without realising it I’ve made forming a romantic relationship almost an impossibility because I don’t feel like I have enough to offer. 

I’m not finished yet. 

When I’m halfway through writing something I never show anyone, because I don’t want them to see it while it’s a cobbled-together mess of unfinished ideas, and the same goes for me. 

What if someone sees me now, and thinks I think this is any good? Like I’m offering them the bare bones of a person – a napkin scrawled on with a fountain pen, the ink bleeding into a mustard stain in the corner of it. 

The frustrating thing is that I know the only way is to let go. To not cling to an idealised image of enough. I have to be enough as I am, as I will be enough in every moment from now until the moment I stop breathing, and perhaps even after. 

In a purely mechanical way, there is more right with me than wrong as long as I’m still breathing.

But how do I know if I’m enough? 

Perhaps to me I’m not enough in a myriad of ways. But I don’t get to decide if I’m enough for anyone else.

I live in the universe in my head just as you do, and what I see and what you see are both true. So maybe when I look at you I see lightning flicker behind your eyes as an idea forms, and I see the wicked playfulness in your cheeks just before that clever remark passes through your lips. Your tongue taking a short lap of honour along your teeth, savouring the flavour it left behind. And I feel the crackle of it singeing my ears and my eyes heading straight to my brain stem, where it plucks the most exquisite tune on the nerves spreading across my entire body, and I can feel the echoes of just how much I love you reverberating in my fingertips. 

And who knows what you see when you look at me?

So, am I enough?

I don’t know.

I suppose that depends…

Enough for what?

And does it matter?

Because even if I don’t feel like I am, at some point I have to decide when to sto-