On Being Enough

My biggest fear is that eventually you will see me the way I see myself. -Anonymous

I was invited by a generous friend of a friend to stay in a house rental in Key West a couple of weeks ago. He had had friends cancel, an open guesthouse, and we shared a love of a trop rock venue that was a block from my home where we’d met a couple of times and struck up a friendship. Excited, I quickly figured out how to make it work in my hectic schedule and arranged to head down for my first Fantasy Fest (a bucket list item since I’ve been told it’s something one must experience once in their life). I had a couple of friends there I’d been meaning to see again and this was a serendipitous offer. So early on a fall October Saturday morning, I packed up the 7 bottles of rum I’d had my friend help me select from the local eclectic liquor store, my swimsuit and Fantasy Fest costume, and drove down.

Some people come into your life and when you meet you have an instant bond. This was the case with my two friends in Key West. One I had met during a Facebook exchange a few years ago and he’d sent me a friend request, and the rest as they say was history. We hit it off immediately. The other was his good friend I knew only slightly through Facebook. She and I ended up having dinner on my birthday eve together, and when I saw her wearing a necklace of a serotonin molecule, I knew she was a kindred spirit.

This time we met at a local bar for lunch and beers. If you know me, sunset is high on my list, an almost obsession, and I wanted to see it from the Sunset Pier that evening. We first headed to meet with friends to watch the football games at a Sports bar, then when it was clear Tampa was killing their opponent and the Raiders were going to come out on top, my friend and I left the guys and hopped over to the Pier for a glimpse of the sun.

The sunset was cloudy and while we watched sailboats drift by us as we sipped cocktails, my friend and I started to talk about life, men, and relationships. Soon it reached a deeper level of discussion about how we see ourselves and how that impacted the relationships we’d both had and the men in our lives.

I have always felt like I was broken.

Those words tumbled out. It didn’t matter which one of us said them, because those words were true for both of us. There’s something about breaking a silence, saying truths that are held deep inside we feel are shameful secrets, that has the power to break walls.

I have never felt whole because I was told from very young that I was different. I always felt like there was something wrong with me. I didn’t fit in; I was not like everyone else and I never could be.

My heart was full and we hugged each other.

I don’t feel I deserve to be loved.

Those whispered words were haunting as they struck a cord. Could it be all the failed experiences we’d each had be because we didn’t feel like we deserved love, that we were not enough? The woman in front of me was wonderful. How could she feel she didn’t deserve someone to cherish her, experience and celebrate life with her? Did we unknowingly sabotage ourselves either by some inherent mismatch with the person we chose or by undermining the relationship because of a feeling of unworthiness?

I feel I always have to prove myself for someone to love me. I am not enough.

There are times you’ve always known something, times you face yourself in the mirror and tell yourself the truth, but until you embrace truth fully in the light, it has a way of breeding untruths in the darkness where the truth is kept hidden. Those untruths feed and grow, whispering comfort while poisoning our vision. How could we be here, both having lived many decades and proven ourselves over and over, still feeling like we are not enough? The ridiculousness of it hit me. I started to laugh realizing how our visions of ourselves had been so warped from such a young age that all we had done since then we each saw as nothing. The truth was far from that. And here I was, unable all these years to see my truth but in that moment I saw her truth, which was my truth, and through that I was finally able to see myself clearly.

Looking at the water, we wiped away our tears and each a little shaken, hugged again. Slowly we walked back in the dark to our respective homes. But not before stopping at a local watering hole for farewell shots. And as we raised our glasses to each other, I knew deep inside that the truth was that I was enough and pretty damn amazing and I knew that she was enough and pretty damn amazing, and I thanked the universe for being with her on this small island known as the rock.