You are Enough!

Am I enough?

 

This is a battle I fight with myself everyday.

 

I remember being in 3rd grade and having to do a report on North Dakota. I remember spending hours on my project and in the end I had my Grandpa cut out the shape of North Dakota in wood for my cover. .. I thought it was awesome and I beamed with pride the day I took it to school. I knew that I was going to get an A+ on this assignment because I had spent SO much time on it, and let’s be real I was super original with the cover to my report! When I got my grade sheet back my teacher had given me a B+ on it and I was devastated. This was the first time in my young life that I felt like I was not enough.

 

When I was a little bit older, but not much I was bullied. I was made fun of all the time and told repeatedly that I was ugly. (At the age of 11, I began to accept the thinking pattern of “You can never be pretty, but you can always be thin.” I accepted this as my truth for almost 20 years of my life. ) At this time I quickly became withdrawn and sad all the time. I didn’t have many friends and I would spend hours outside by myself so that if the phone rang and it was her I wouldn’t have to answer it. It was a really hard time in my life and I remember all those feelings like it was yesterday. I was only 11 and still remember that feeling of once again not being enough.

 

I spent the majority of my High School years pretending to be very confident in myself. I was mean, and very quick to judge others, because if I pointed out other people’s faults maybe they wouldn’t see mine .  Maybe when I called them ugly they wouldn’t know that really it was I who felt ugly. Those who really knew me, knew that so much of what others saw was not who I was on the inside. Very few people saw my insecure, funny, loving side because once again I was afraid who I really was would not be enough. I am not proud of this time in my life and the person I chose to be.  I chose to be the one person I never wanted to be. I chose fake over real and that makes me sad to think about to this day. I hid behind boyfriends because I felt like if a boy liked me then I must be loveable. I must be pretty. I depended on others to make my happiness instead of finding my own. Like I said, not a time in my life I am proud of. Once again falling so short of being enough.

 

A few years after high school I went to College. This is where I met my husband. We dated for a long time, and honestly our relationship was always up and down because of choices we made. When we first started talking about marriage my husband told me he wasn’t sure that I was the “one” and I was SO hurt by this. I could not figure out why we had spent so much time together dating if I wasn’t the one. I once again came to the conclusion… I was just not enough! { PS…My husband and I laugh about this now and I very much know that I am the “ONE”}

 

As I have battled throughout my life with the feelings of  being inadequate, of not being enough, Motherhood is no different. Being a mother is the hardest of all my life experiences to talk about. It’s the most important, sacred thing to me, yet, it’s the one I feel like I am the worst at. The one that shouts day in and day out, repeatedly “you are not enough” I know I am not the mom that makes pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse.

 

 

{Picture courtesy of Google}

I am overwhelmed by all the birthday party details these days.

 {Picture courtesy of Pinterest}

 

I am not Betty Crocker when it comes to the kitchen and I am certainly not Martha Stewart when it comes to crafts. My house is not straight out of Elle Decor and my children are not dressed in the latest boutique fashions. All of these things become very evident to me when I spend an hour on Pinterest or blog hopping around the blogshere.  I hate that I find myself comparing who I am and what I can do to others. With the internet and the access to all things perfect it becomes so easy to get caught in this trap of comparison. To look around the internet and see other mom’s who seem to do it all and find ourselves asking “why can’t I?”. It becomes what feels like our reality. That we as mom’s should be good at it all and we are somehow failing, falling so short of being enough because we are not. That our children will somehow feel deprived for the eternities if their sandwich is not made to look like a giraffe.

 

{Picture courtesy of Pinterest}

 In reality it is us, as women and mothers who put these outrageous expectations on ourselves. It is us as mothers who feel like we are depriving our children’s happiness if we don’t live up to these expectations for our kids. We as women need to stop comparing ourselves to others. We need to embrace what our God given talents are and make those our focus. I believe that God sent us our little people not by chance but by choice. I believe this is because we were the ones who could help them be their best selves. That our individual strengths and talents have a purpose in raising our children.

 

I want to be a good mom. I want my kids to know that I love them and they make me SO unbelievably happy. I want them to grow up and be confident, happy, kind people. To know that just being who God sent them here to be is enough. I want them to be all the things I feel that I am not. When I chose to march into battle against my eating disorder it was because I DO NOT want my habits and insecurities to become my children’s. I DO NOT want to have to set an alarm for each meal as a reminder that my kids need to eat for the rest of their little lives. I want to be better so that they too will be better! So, each day I fight on in the battle of being enough. Constantly reminding myself that my children’s needs are simple and it is I who make it complicated. Everyday focusing on the things that I am good at and trying not to focus on the things that I am not!

 

 

Because at the end of the day when their eyes light up with laughter, or they give me a hug and tell me how much they love me, or the fit of giggles that ensue when we bust a move in our crazy dance party, or the hours we spend snuggled up watching a movie in our pretend fort, it is in these simple, little moments that I know they are happy, healthy and loved.

 

It is their happiness in these simple acts that feeds my soul and whispers to my heart….

 

YOU ARE ENOUGH!

 

Kallie is the Creator and Editor of Smitten By.

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