You Are Enough

I am participating in the Writing Contest: You Are Enough, hosted by Positive Writer — http://positivewriter.com/writing-contest-your-calling-your-story/

Writing has always been my thing.

An old family friend recently described me as a five year old, wandering around with my notebook and pen, scribbling long before I’d learnt to write. (clearly not one to let actual ability stand in my way.)

Sometime later, a teenaged rebellious, feminist me set off travelling with gusto. Determined not to be bowed by the judgements of others or their limitations of “must”, I would not be settling for any mundane, prescribed existence. I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do — all I knew was that I was determined to “have a big, exciting life and then come home and write about it”.

And a big exciting life I did have, for the better part of a decade! Touching down on nearly every continent, I laughed, loved and explored, swept up in a wonderful, inspired adventure. I got a butterfly in a compass inked on my shoulder- a highly visible symbol of the free-spirited identity I embodied; sexually awakened, confident, happy, hedonistic with an endlessly enquiring and expressive mind. I roamed wherever the desire took me, very intentionally and vocally surrendering myself to and trusting in the flow.

I knew those memoirs wouldn’t be penned without a few field notes, so with the proliferation of internet cafes I logged my adventures in a sprawling series of emails sent from an impressive variety of places around the globe. These missives were shared with an expanding list of inbox addresses of friends, lovers, acquaintances, fellow fun-followers, travellers, people who had touched me in some way–or I had touched them– enough to stay in touch.

And then, came the fall.

In the midst of my free-footed journeying, I tripped into love–or, more precisely–the hope of love. I headed across the globe through the allure of a deep minded man, on what turned out to be his whim.

We’d met briefly in Amsterdam, and shared many words across the webs. He was a poetic player, more than a decade my elder, who spun and weaved meanings that resonated. Perhaps I was also engulfed in that hectic time on the cusp of millennium’s turn, caught up in the doomsday desperation of my own bug…

I soon found myself rejected and ejected from Atlanta, broken-hearted and broke.

This detour starkly highlighted my lack of life direction. After a decade of flight, I set a firm course home to Australia. I landed back in London and did my financially restorative penance while I nursed my wounds.

For the butterfly was sorely bruised. I berated myself for that hopeful gullibility, for the foolishness of having been seduced by his lyrical trickery. And I began to distrust words. They had become something else- missiles of deceit, tools of manipulation.

But worse- I began distrusting my own words. The whirling, whooping world I had created in life, and onscreen.

My friend, going through her own existentialist crisis, responded to one of my missives by asking pointedly if I’d read the Buddhist words on humility. That strike sent the spin of self-doubt I was already in to a dizzying spiral.

Who did I think I was gushing my adventures? What kind of conceitedness was I enmeshed in, to think that anyone would want to hear me? The ones who responded did so positively, telling me they enjoyed my tales and that I had talent. But what did the majority who didn’t respond think? That I was full of myself; a flippant, superficial mayfly flitting around the globe? What did I have to say? And how dare I seize the space to say it?

Her (now much regretted) question was to be the final crushing of me unashamedly living and loving my life, and sharing my words about it. What had been total confidence and a refreshing, reflective curiosity was gone.

The exchange with that lyrical trickster and nearly all of my emails, are sadly also gone; system-deleted archives from a long-neglected inbox. I didn’t stop having the adventures or musing on them, but I stopped joyfully broadcasting them and, lacking the motivation and structure of frequent output, my writing became sporadic at best.

It took me too long to realise my truth- I simply can’t not write.

Even as a wife with swelling belly, and then a working single mother with all the distractions and shifts in identity that brought- I’ve always known myself to be a writer. When I picked my self-esteem out of the rubble of my broken marriage- I especially understood how much I need that output, to make sense of my life.

And when I enthusiastically encouraged my little girl, a mini-me of inspired scribings, I remembered that expression shared can often help others to make meaning of their lives.

But when I thought again about sharing more broadly, I was crippled by self-consciousness, second-guessing the possible reception of everything I wrote. Waiting to launch because it wasn’t perfect and shouldn’t I edit it that bit more?

I have come to understand that to be the best version of myself, sharing my experiences and my reflections is simply part of what I’m meant to do.

Maybe I needed a little dash of humility but I didn’t need to lose my free-spirited sense of adventure- in life and most certainly in my words. I am learning the acceptance to be ok with them being nothing more than journey markers, a record of my thoughts and deliberations of that time.

I might not write with the eloquence of the literary greats. But I will write with the grace (or disgrace) and articulation (and lack thereof) of me. And I now trust that it is enough.

And now, as I see my girl wander around with her notebook and pen, I tell her what I heard but should have believed more. “What you write, what you express may not be perfect. But it is you. There’ll always be critics and haters. You don’t need to be brilliant. You don’t need to have perfect prose and if you don’t practice you surely won’t. What you write is enough, because you are enough. Keep your feet on the ground but trust in your flow, and come what may, don’t let anything or anyone stop you writing.”

In mayhem, marvel and mirth — MamaMindFULL ❤