Am I Enough?

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am." - Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" (1963)

Am I enough?

It's more of the difference between being pursued by a lion and actively working towards your own betterment, the difference between running away from a murderer and running towards the first place prize.

It's not about winning. It's about not losing. Except, you don't know where the line is between safety and danger, so you run with everything you have. Where is the boundary between enough and not enough? The line between being kept and abandoned? And apparently all those promises of "unconditional love" by my parents meant very little to me as a baby who had been told "my birthmother loved me so much, she gave me up." A trite, simplistic explanation that failed to include the truth and complexity of international adoption. Not that you can really explain all that to a baby, but still.

I want to be enough. I worry that I'm not. And even if I am, I won't believe it's true. And even if it is, it will never last.

I don't always consciously feel like this though. There are days when I am on top of the world, but when it gets bad. It gets bad.

If only I were (pretty enough, strong enough, valuable enough, kind enough, worthy enough, loved enough) just enough, then maybe I would not have been "abandoned," and maybe I can prevent it from happening again.

I didn't say it made a whole lot of sense. Of course, I'm not going anywhere and my parents aren't going to leave me (not to mention I'm a legal adult). Still, that is how I feel.