To Hell with Enough

I was mud wrestling with an article I hoped to post. No doubt about it: I was stuck. I had conveyed what I wanted to say, the mechanics were neatly edited, the spelling passed the damn-autocorrect-homonym test. I scrolled down to my last paragraph, hoping that it was enough of a coda – enough of a message – enough of something/anything that would be good enough . . . all so I could click the “Submit” button and bid farewell to that unruly noodle of a thought wriggling inside my writing brain.

Still, something kept tugging me back to the page. I read my last sentence. I stopped. Went and poured myself a glass of Chardonnay. Wondered what the heck was stopping me from clicking on the button that would whisk away any further demands or edits of this particular work. Calgon, yes, please, take me away. I’ve been sitting at this desk all afternoon saying . . . well, not a whole lot, really.

I thought about the words submit and submission in relation to anyone submitting their writing . . . and I then had one of those church-bell-tower moments when all of the bats come wheeling out of the belfry in all directions: Is my writing ever, and I mean ever, good enough to submit?

The answer was immediate: “Hell no!” Never. Hardly ever. You’ve got to be kidding, right?

The tone or quality or singularity of the writing aside, I can invariably go back and find, at the very least, a paragraph out of sync or several mechanical errors: a forgotten comma or a dangling modifier or a split infinitive or a misspelling. I spot it and curse the screen, knowing that the option to edit and correct, yes, may still be there but then . . . I wonder. Does it really matter? I’m human, okay? To all of you self-appointed Grammar Gurus: mistakes happen, okay?

The idea of enough is a weird, prickly, and thorny concept if you pick it apart. Have gauze and bandages at the ready. We read about it and hear about enough all the time now with its connections to affirmations and mantras: I am enough. I have enough. There is enough. Certainly, all incredibly positive sentiments, and I take no umbrage at anyone repeating these words with the hopes of feeling empowered and soothed. (Yes, these very same words are on a sticky note on my bathroom mirror – right there for me to repeat each morning as I wash my face with my beloved seaweed soap.)

Still, a part of me is in full rebellion against the notion of submitting or giving in to the concept of enough. Why? Because it’s been trained into my brain that it's just not good enough to simply be content with enough.

I remember being in grade school and teachers trying to fool us by telling us that there was really no difference between the reading groups labeled the Eagles and the Seagulls. Uhmmm, right. Thanks for your attempt at discretion, Mrs. Merriwether, but we had it all figured out. One look at smarty-pants Karen Kowalski sitting within the ring of Eagles told us what was really going on.

Yes, there were also the other groups called Robins and Bluebirds, too . . . yet to be a Seagull when there were Eagles riding the thermals above our heads? We Seagulls sat there in our prayer circle sounding out long words and hoping that we wouldn't be called upon to read aloud.

Well, I think I’ve finally had enough with the enough baloney. When we apply such a wildly immeasurable concept to our own sense of self, we are indeed doing nothing more than comparing ourselves with what we are not in the present moment, what we wish we could become in the future, or what others (in their gaslighting ways) subtly (or not so subtly) demand from and expect of us if we are going to earn their admiration, their acceptance, and sometimes even their love. [If you haven’t been caught up in this type of push-me-pull-you relationship, consider yourself a unicorn and polish that lovely and singular horn. I would say that I envy you, but then I’d have to dislike you for being more than good enough. Sigh. Oh, the fickle degrees of enough! They extract the worst from all of us.]

Yes, all of this sucks.

So, we set ourselves up to be our own absolute-worst critics and punish ourselves accordingly. We flog away, using the perceived success of others and, even worse, our own personal aspirations as our metrics. We measure away, miserably self-assigning key performance indicators, all while thinking that if only we tried harder, lost more weight, had cuter clothes, were in better shape, earned more money, had a bigger house, had a late-model car, had curly/straight hair (the opposite of whatever hair you have), had a “calling” instead of a job. At this rate, when will we ever achieve good enough?

And, personally, as a writer, to assuredly and confidently click that Submit button? When?

The answer, practically speaking, is either never or now.

Before you label me a total pessimist, cynic, or defeatist, please, delay and stop swinging that branding iron around. You’re going to hurt someone. Sometimes, yes, it is a matter of being-too-hard-on-myself and dragging documents into random, never-to-be-found-again folders on my external hard drive where they shall forever sleep. This is what translates to putting me squarely in the Never Camp.

But the Now Camp? I stop. And just breathe. And be one with the word-noodle. Then, I grow emboldened and knight myself as the chill Whatever Girl. I am pleased on the inside, even knowing that I am far from Submit-Perfect. It is a glorious day in Desk-ville and I am released, for the time being, from that part of me that strives for better than good enough. It is enough to just have something to write. Good enough or not, I will aspire to have thoughts and feelings and turns of phrases that will lead me to put words onto the page.

It’s a sad thing. And a beautiful thing, too. That even during the actual writing, a writer knows that she is on an expanding continuum that has more scale and spectrum than any scientist can quantify, qualify, or measure. It’s like scattering grains of yeast over a bowl of warm water and waiting for the mixture to bloom. If the water is too cold or too hot, you are screwed. If the water is exactly right, you are way more than enough. You are golden. You are on your way to becoming a loaf of bread, the very food that was blessed to feed the thousands.

Where does this leave me, the lowly launcher of unhatched bread loaves and unsubmitted tales? Well, it makes me an imperfect, who-tries-not-to-care-about-enough word slinger that won’t be defeated or silenced, even though I have been cast as a Seagull. After all, we birds all fly, build nests, protect our young, and feel pretty cool soaring around in an element whose mastery has been denied to man without a motor or engine. Eagle or Seagull – it is all good. I’m just dang happy that I can fly.

So, to toast this New Year of writing? I am banishing enough from my brain and my heart.

I am scrolling to the bottom to click Submit. Now.