I Am Me. And That Is Enough
On feeling everything, becoming someone, and finally learning to see myself.
I have always been swollen with emotion.
Not in the theatrical sense, although I suppose that depends entirely on how you define theatrical.
I don’t raise my voice particularly often. I don’t enjoy being the center of attention. Somewhere along the periphery of the spotlight is much more my speed. Close enough to participate, far enough away to observe.
But despite my relatively quiet exterior, I have always felt everything.
Deeply. Intensely. Sometimes unbearably.
I’ve swallowed screams that deserved to be heard. I’ve carried horrors that never quite found their way into words. I’ve cried the kind of tears that leave you feeling hollowed out, only to discover that the emptiness can be strangely cathartic.
And I’ve clung desperately to happiness.
Those beautiful, fleeting moments when everything feels exactly as it should. When the world quiets just long enough for you to appreciate being alive.
I’ve always found it fascinating that a person can contain so much emotion without the world ever knowing.
That someone can be laughing at a dinner table while quietly unraveling inside. That joy and grief can coexist, occupying the same space, neither willing to surrender to the other.
I think I’ve spent much of my life existing somewhere between those two extremes.
Feeling everything. Showing considerably less.
And then I became a wife.
And a mother.
And holy shit, did that complicate things.
Because suddenly, my emotional landscape wasn’t exclusively my own.
It wasn’t enough to navigate my own sadness, happiness, disappointment, heartbreak, or fear.
Now I found myself experiencing those emotions on behalf of the people I love most.
My husband’s disappointments can feel like my own. His happiness is infectious. His burdens sometimes become things I desperately wish I could carry for him.
And my children?
Well.
There is nothing quite as humbling as watching pieces of your heart wander around outside your body, completely unaware of how much power they hold over you.
I watch them learn. I watch them struggle. I watch them discover the world with a kind of curiosity that makes me remember what it felt like to experience things for the very first time.
And I watch them hurt.
Which, as it turns out, is one of the cruelest parts of loving someone so completely.
Because I can’t protect them from everything.
Nor should I.
They need their disappointments. Their mistakes. Their heartbreaks. They need to discover who they are without me constantly trying to soften every sharp edge of the world.
But knowing that intellectually and accepting it emotionally are two very different things.
Parenthood has been the most extraordinary, exhausting, humbling experience of my life.
It has taught me that love is not always gentle.
Sometimes love is terrifying.
Sometimes it’s standing quietly beside someone while every instinct in your body is screaming for you to intervene.
And sometimes it’s simply letting go.
Through all of this, there’s been a constant undercurrent of emotion simmering beneath my surface. A thousand thoughts, feelings, questions, and observations bubbling away, occasionally threatening to spill into the world.
But more often than not, they fall short.
I think that’s part of why I write.
Writing gives those feelings somewhere to go.
It allows me to take the things I can’t always articulate aloud and give them shape. To examine the complicated, contradictory, occasionally ugly pieces of being human without needing to apologize for their existence.
And perhaps, in doing so, I’ve been trying to understand myself.
These last few years have taught me more about who I am than the decades that preceded them.
I’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time thinking about what I want from this life. What kind of woman I want to be. What my presence means to the people around me.
Am I a good wife?
A good mother?
A good friend?
Am I doing enough?
Am I enough?
For a long time, I wanted desperately to be seen.
Not necessarily admired. Not applauded or celebrated.
Just seen.
Really seen.
I wanted someone to recognize the thoughts and dreams and extraordinary amount of feeling that existed beneath the surface.
But there was always a contradiction.
I wanted to be seen, yet I was terrified of what might happen if someone looked too closely.
What if I wasn’t as interesting as I hoped?
As intelligent?
As capable?
What if the version of me that existed in someone else’s imagination was infinitely more impressive than the woman standing in front of them?
What if I couldn’t live up to the hype?
It’s a strange thing, wanting recognition while simultaneously fearing the scrutiny that comes with it.
But something has changed.
Maybe it’s age. Maybe it’s motherhood. Maybe it’s the accumulation of experiences that have slowly chipped away at the parts of me that were never particularly authentic to begin with.
Or maybe I’ve simply grown tired of measuring myself against expectations I never agreed to.
Whatever the reason, I’ve arrived somewhere new.
Somewhere quieter.
Somewhere that feels remarkably like acceptance.
I know who I am.
I am, first and foremost, a caring, creative, intelligent woman with enormous dreams and an occasionally ridiculous imagination.
I am curious about the world and the people who inhabit it. I want to understand what makes us different, what connects us, what breaks us, and what makes us whole again.
I am a wife to the most extraordinary man I’ve ever known.
And babe, if you’re reading this, I could live a thousand lifetimes and still aspire to possess even half the goodness you carry so effortlessly. You are my favorite person, my greatest comfort, and the love I will never stop being grateful for.
I am a mother.
Two remarkable little humans are growing and learning and becoming entirely their own people right in front of me.
Fucking wild.
I am a friend.
Sometimes an imperfect one. Sometimes a distracted one. But always someone who loves fiercely and cares deeply.
I am an author.
Even writing those words feels surreal. Something that existed for so long as a quiet dream has become part of my reality. I’ve taken the thoughts in my head, the strange places my imagination wanders, and turned them into something tangible.
Something I can hold.
Something other people can read.
And in doing so, I’ve allowed myself to be seen in a way that once terrified me.
I am tenacious.
I have been knocked down, disappointed, overwhelmed, and occasionally spectacularly wrong.
I’ve changed my mind. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve hurt people unintentionally and been hurt in return.
I’ve learned that strength doesn’t always look like resilience. Sometimes it looks like vulnerability. Sometimes it looks like admitting you don’t have the answers.
And sometimes it looks like getting out of bed and trying again.
I am still emotional.
Still occasionally overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of being alive.
Still learning how to navigate the space between what I feel and what I allow the world to see.
But I no longer believe I need to become someone else to deserve the life I want.
I don’t need to be louder.
I don’t need to be quieter.
I don’t need to be more impressive, more accomplished, more agreeable, or more easily understood.
I can be complicated.
I can be contradictory.
I can be a woman who feels everything and still doesn’t always know what to do with those feelings.
I can be all of these things at once.
And perhaps the most beautiful realization of all is that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life trying to become someone worthy of being seen.
I already am.
I am me.
And that is enough.