‘What do you mean?!? I will never be enough? I work so hard! I go to the gym. I eat the right things. I read ten minutes everyday. I help others. I AM a good person!’
The dark, shadowed shape moved its head slightly in disagreement.
‘It does not matter, whatever you do, you will never be enough!’
She was starting to get angry.
‘What do you MEAN?!? Whyyyy? This makes no sense! It is ridiculous! I am doing everything I am supposed to!
The shadowy figure moved and she could see the shine of long, black nails in the moonlight. Only they were not black as if done with nail polish, but they had an inner blackness, like they were dirty and strange looking from the inside.
She took a step back, despite her curiosity streaked with anger she felt she should not get too close to the unpleasant figure.
‘I don’t have to listen to you! Some random from the street! You don’t know me!’
She wanted to turn her back and leave, but a part of her was curious to see what it will say next.
It laughed a dry, mocking kind of laughter.
‘I don’t know you? Well, I don’t have to, to know you! will! never! be! enough! No matter what you do, no matter how much you work, train, refrain or help others.’
He paused for a brief moment and then as if by magic moved swiftly getting extremely close to her and yelled in her face so loud that she felt her ears drum hurt.
‘NEVER!’
The shadows breath smelled strange and in a way familiar, like something, or someone, from her childhood, that she could not, or would not, remember.
Tears started to run down her face, but the person she was now made her stand her ground. She wanted to understand, she was ready to understand.
‘Why? Why will I never be enough? Why can’t I be enough? I am as good as any other person! I am not worse or no better. Why can’t I be good enough for this world?’
The shadow had gone back to leaning against a wall and pretending to mind its own business.
The shadow shrugged.
‘Only you can answer that! I can just state the facts. It is what it is!’
She felt broken and disheartened.
It was true, despite all her efforts, she was never enough. She was never smart enough, good looking enough, she kept her days chasing shadows her mind projected onto the world. She fed incessantly this gaping abyss inside her, working hard to throw into it whatever she could find, hoping that something will close it and she will get some relief.
It never did. On the contrary, it just got bigger and hungrier, and no matter how much she strived to fill it all she felt was emptiness and discontent.
She understood what the shadow was saying.
‘What do I do?’, her voice was pleading and hurting.
‘How should I know, I am just a shadow of yourself!’, and it turned around, walked away and melted in the darkness surrounding her from everywhere.
But for the moon. The Moon was there, high up, beautiful and unreachable, lighting the way for the clouds giving them safe passage.
She had never seen a moon so bright, so balanced, so calming. She sat down on the wet cobbles and allowed the moon to shine onto her, to reveal her darkness and light the misunderstood corners of her being.
‘I might, I might actually never be enough, but maybe that is how I am supposed to live my life. Maybe I can not be enough. Maybe I don’t need to be enough.’
As she was thinking these thoughts, she felt the emptiness inside quiet down, the absurdity of thoughts planted by others fade away, and she felt not hungry anymore.
No more hunger for approval, for appreciation, for acceptance. She felt at ease and at peace, allowing herself just to be for the first time in years. No tasks, no to-do lists, no thoughts of impending doom.
Just herself under the moonlight watching the clouds’ passage across the expansive sky.
‘I will never be enough, I see that now, and I accept it, and I accept myself. I welcome my imperfect self in my life and I give myself permission to be imperfect.’
She smiled at the moon and then looked at the space vacated by the shadow.
‘You are right, I will never be enough and I embrace it!’
The dark shadow was gone replaced by the faint light of the moon.
‘I will never be enough, and that is just fine!’
A brilliant realisation!