enough

It's late, but I wanted to write. School starts Monday and I move back tomorrow, I don't know how often I will get to write-- so I'm doing it now.
I've been anxious to get back to school, to see friends and be settled before classes start, but I've also been dreading to leave. I will miss my family, home cooked meals, sleepovers at Mara & Kevin's, sweet little Avy, and my job. I will also miss the freedom that summer brings. Freedom from more than just school. There are no classes to study for and no tests to take, but for some reason, to me, Summer has more of a "come as you are" feeling than any other time of the year. Summer is good.
Don't get me wrong, I love Fall too. I love the smell of Fall, crunchy leaves, chunky sweaters and, spicy teas, and anything pumpkin, but I don't like all of what Fall brings. I like to learn and I like to be at my beautiful school, but as I write this I feel the sense of do more, be more, get to work, that Fall brings.
As most/all humans do, I struggle with feelings of not enough. It has looked different throughout my life, and now as a 21-year-old college students it looks like academics, achievements, success, and image.
I'm reading Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown, and she talks about the human issue of enough. She talks about how our first thought in the morning is about scarcity-- we didn't get enough sleep, and then we don't have enough time-- and how this cycle continues throughout the day. I feel this most often when I am in the midst of the chaos and business of school. I feel like I don't get enough sleep and that I don't have enough time, but I also feel like the best version of myself, and my best work, is still not enough. I am surely my toughest critic, but throughout the day I am beating off the nagging voice that tells me, "study more,  get better grades, exercise more, eat healthier, look more presentable (e.g., maybe not yoga pants everyday, Mal!), respond to emails faster, be a better roommate..." that little nagging voice seriously. doesn't. stop. But I think I'm changing that. Yes, I said it. I've just decided. I refuse to believe the voice of not enough.

This year, I want to believe that I am enough. Just as I am. Outside of my grades, my weight, my email-response speed, and so many other things about me that are not perfect.

There is a bigger truth, I have a God who beats out that nagging voice that is mean and wrong. He is my heavenly father, who created me and said that I am not just good, but very good (Gen 1:31). Who knows my deepest secrets and my desires, who knows my flaws and faults, and still believes that I am beautiful and perfect. And He calls me his beloved.
I think that when I listen to the voice of not enough instead of the voice of loved, I miss out on life. I miss out on showing up and being present because I am too busy worrying about being better in that moment, in that classroom, at that meeting. And I miss loving people, because when you listen to voice of not enough, comparison and jealously come along for the ride. Suddenly, anything you previously going for you, looks plain lame compared to someone else. Instead of focusing on loving people well, I worry that I didn't do as well as they did on the exam, or that they look perfectly cute and put together and I look like I got 5 hours of sleep and concealed my dirty hair under my baseball hat. Life becomes a competition.
Remember in swim lessons, when the teacher would tell you swim to them? "I'm right here, just swim right to me." And then the most terrifying thing would happen right when you were about to meet the "right here" point......... they took 5 steps back. What! My 4-year-old self would freak out. My 21-year-old self freaks out when I view things in life as a "right here" point. Like, success, and relationships. I can never keep up and I continue to be a failure if I believe that I am suppose to be perfect. I am just a work in progress, and I am doing my best. Swim lessons look different however, with people cheering you on and encouraging you and someone who loves you standing in the pool with their arms open saying "I've always been here waiting. I love you. You are good enough, you don't need to swim anymore. I have you." I think that is how God would be in the pool.
As corny as my analogy is, I like it. I am just learning how to swim, I'm figuring it out, and learning how to live in the truth of my beloved-ness.
I'm going to try to show up more just as I am, and listen to the "loved" voice, that tells me I am good enough, both, in my mess and on my best days.
I am a dear child of God, I am beloved. So are you.

“First of all, you have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: 'These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting belief.” 
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World