Never Enough

I am currently experiencing a period of burnout. I think it happens to all of us: swaths of time where we just feel drained and empty and in desperate need of recharge. I’m not sleeping well, so that’s not helping.

This week, my partner was listing off my recent achievements to a friend and the list started to sound exhausting. I have a lot on the go right now, but I’m thinking many others do as well. I’m doing the continual work of trying to decentre myself and not place my importance in the middle of all this work, but when he rhymed off all the projects I have on the go right now, it helped me realize why my well is dry.

I’m trying hard. I’m trying to be all the things to all the people, and that inevitably leads to exhaustion and burn out. Not just in the community, doing work I feel is important work to do, but with my family; trying to be the best mother I can be; trying to be the best daughter I can be; trying to be the best partner I can be.

In these times of burnout when I see no opportunity for recharge in sight, the phrase that holds in my head is “I’m not enough”. I don’t have enough time and energy to give, I don’t have the solutions to these complex problems, I don’t have the patience, or the drive, or the focus, or or or or. It’s easy to find all the ways that I’m lacking, and then follows the guilt of having made commitments I am struggling to follow through with, or having positioning myself to BE enough when, in fact, I’m not.

In repeating this broken mantra of “I’m not enough”, I hear all those hippy-dippy self-help social media gurus telling me that I AM ENOUGH! and that, despite feeling the opposite, I should hold that statement to be true regardless. If I say it enough times, maybe it will magically come true. But honestly, I can tangibly see the ways in which I’m not enough. I feel them in my relationships and I can see the balls being dropped. I think that I AM ENOUGH statement actually means that I can never be enough and the expectation that I will ever be enough is totally unreachable and unrealistic. It means that whatever I have to give HAS to be enough, even if there’s more that is required.

There’s a small sort of peace that comes with that realization - a gentle nudge that absolves my lackings with the reminder that no one can ever be everything to every person and every cause. At the same time, there’s a heart wrenching stab that explains quite honestly that I will always fall short.

I’m not enough becomes I can never be enough.

Because, let’s be honest, the world needs more. Our relationships need more. If we don’t take on this work to build better connections and better systems, it will never materialize. But the expectation to do this work alone in a vacuum is fucking ridiculous and the thinner I spread myself, the less I can be to any one cause. And when I set unrealistic expectations or goals, it’s no one’s fault but my own if I can’t deliver.

And when I step back to recharge or take time for myself, I see the ways in which my absence creates gaps, and the guilt pours in anew.

Once again, I have no solutions, only solidarity. This is not how we were meant to live. Maybe once I’m through this rut, I’ll be able to see options or solutions more clearly, but it’s still so murky from where I stand.