I Am Enough
Read Time: 5 Minutes
Words by McKinsey McCormick
My alarm chirps each morning by 6:00 while the smell of coffee lures me from my bed. I sit in the dim light of the quiet house and inevitably begin to outline my day. I’ve promised myself I’ll open the devotional first, but my planner often sneaks into the line up before I realize which book is in my hands.
Just like your typical toddler, by mid-morning I am ready for my second breakfast and by mid-afternoon I am ready for a nap. But when I hear my husband leave his office and head downstairs for a cup of coffee, I jump from my snuggled spot on the couch. I pretend I am reading a book because that’s a more productive form of rest. Unnecessarily, I justify my break with the chores I’ve already checked off.
When I became a stay-at-home mom I replaced work time productivity with naptime productivity.
After closing my son’s bedroom door, I immediately begin searching for random projects around the house that could be completed. The dishes might be done, the floors swept, and the laundry folded...but is there a closet that needs decluttering? Does the pantry need to be organized? I bet the refrigerator could use a good cleaning! There must be some way I can make this time count.
I was a high school English teacher and as such my relationship with planning and list-making runs deep. My desk was always ordered, my bookshelves organized by genre, and my lessons typically spanned the semester. In my early years as a novice teacher I over-planned as a safety net. Yet even when I had experience and tenure, it was still a habit I couldn’t break.
Planning gives me the false security that I am in control. It eases my compulsion to constantly question if I am doing it right. At least this is what I tell myself.
Naturally, I carried this posture with me into motherhood. When I was nearing the end of my pregnancy, I had multiple documents intended to prove I was prepared. Of course there was the birth plan (printed on blue cardstock for extra sturdiness). Thankfully I thought it through to “plan c” because that’s where we landed. Then there was the “baby inventory” which was a detailed document listing every article of clothing, box of diapers, and bottle of lotion stocked in the nursery. And eventually, when I returned to work for a mere two weeks, there was the “baby survival guide” which offered a strict schedule and a preferred method for feeding, swaddling, and napping. No signs of control issues to be found here.
During grad school my lists are whittled into chunks. As the assignments pile up and the semester nears the end, the intensity rises. Each day is dissected and I neurotically type out what I need to be doing with any span of free time. Seeing it pieced together offers me some solace and assurance.
My default setting is tense. Even when there’s no need for stress, I will subconsciously find one. My brain and my body work in tandem to tell me that I should be on high-alert despite the reality of the situation. Is there a term for pre-stress? If so, I have that too.
There is an undeniable comfort in a plan that goes accordingly or is expertly executed. Having control of my day, my week, and our season is an illusion, but one that I willingly chose to believe in. If I douse summer days in water, sweets, and sunshine, then I’m doing it right. If, when the weather turns colder, I plan trips to the orchard, pumpkin patch, and cider mill, what could go wrong? Don’t get me started on the month of December. I’m convinced that if I try hard enough I can guarantee positive outcomes for myself and my people. And if we miss the mark, at least it wasn’t for lack of effort.
But I cannot control other people’s happiness. I can barely regulate my own. And no matter how desperately I wish I could, I cannot dispense joy.
Writing a to-do list and then crossing off the items, pressing the backspace bar, or adding the checkmark can artificially fill a space that isn’t meant for a crumpled piece of paper at the end of the day. List making and planning on their own are not unhealthy. Many would argue they’re attributes of an organized and dependable adult. It’s the worthiness aspect often attached that complicates things.
I cannot continue to weigh myself against the heft of an inexhaustible list.
***
At the start of the year I penned my word of focus as “enough.” Each month my planner has a line for a mantra and I’ve simply written, “I am enough.” It’s more of a prayer than a reminder. The kind of prayer that you’re constantly re-learning and reciting no matter how basic it should be to the fabric of your being. It’s akin to my two-year-old son chanting, “I think I can, I think I can” as we hike up a steep hill together. A little blue train taught him that we can do hard things. I’m trying to model that important lesson as well.
Lately rest has been presented as a necessity, not a reward. Choose rest on purpose. Embrace rest. Schedule rest. This invitation offends my engrained upbringing of homework first, then play. There was no break from the bus stop to the bookbag. I’m not sure if this is a bad system, but I know that somewhere along the line I started to believe that rest was earned. Until recently, that concept was regularly reinforced.
Admittedly, this new approach is liberating. I’m still finding my balance but it’s a worthy search. I’m learning to ignore the nagging feeling that you should be doing something more useful with this time. I’m wrestling to quiet the criticism of, “are you resting in the most beneficial way possible?”
I’m choosing to rest through my creativity, in unapologetically napping, and by simply sitting in the sunshine. I’ve read more books in the past two years than I have since high school. I’m resting by saying both “no” and “yes.” My husband and I are committed to making rest for both of us a priority in our week even if it does become a box filled in on the planner. I don’t want it to become another performance but for now it requires practice. Ironically, I have to plan to relax.
If having dusty baseboards doesn’t make me a bad homemaker, then having a long and completed to-do list doesn’t make me a good one either. There will always be more that could be done. By some standards more that should be done. But there won’t be another summer where my son is two and tenaciously committed to curiosity and play. There won’t be another transition where we soak up “just the three of us” as we try to grow our family. Time is always moving and I want to slow down enough to notice its passing.
More than anything, I want to rest in the reassurance that I am enough.
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About the Author:
McKinsey McCormick lives in Frederick, Maryland with her husband, son, and two cats. A high school English teacher on hiatus, she is home with her toddler full-time and is truly grateful for the current career change. She loves intentional connections, good words, dark chocolate, and long naps.
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