What If You’re Already More Than Enough?

Enoughness is something we’re pushed every day. I remember reading endless New Year resolution posts in January about how more and more people were striving to simply be enough.

What if you’re already enough? You’re more than enough? And that’s why you keep cycling through friendships, relationships, situationships? In fact, you’re so ‘you’ that it scares them away. Now that I’m older, wiser and have the entirety of my twenties bookended away and ready to dissect, I’m understanding that we enjoy seasons of our lives much in the way we enjoy calendar seasons. No two are the same, although they may be similar. You’ll experience a harsh winter and then a milder one; you’ll experience heartache that teaches you to toughen up and then heartache that cossets and softens you again. There’ll be quiet springs that help you remember what makes you tick, then radiant growth-filled springs that project you towards everything you’ve always dreamed of.

I sat with one of my oldest friends, paper coffee cups in hand, and we mused about how I could be such a romantic in all areas of my life, yet remained single, after it all.

“It’s intimidating. People… could fall in love with you so quickly, Michelle.”

For months after hearing that simple sentence, I’d rehash the moment time and time again. If ‘people’ could fall in love with me so quickly, why was I left alone time and time again? Just four months into dating somebody new, when we’d reached the hands-in-each-other’s-pockets and endless surprise treats stage, I heard the same words again. “It’s a lot; I could be in love with you so fast,” before pulling away again. Tugging it all away, again. My friends, the self-help books, the endless Instagram quotes and my wonderful counsellor all regularly remind me that when I pour love into myself, the world will return it to me. Yet somehow, I was… too much? Where did that fit in? For once, couldn’t the world let me have a balanced and reciprocal love?

Self-love is something that I’ve been consciously making an effort to practice in 2021. For years, I prioritised somebody – which isn’t a bad thing, at all! – above everything else. If they needed something, it wouldn’t ever be a problem. If they wanted something, they’d have it in moments. Somewhere along the line, it became a problem, a manipulative abuse, and I completely lost myself. It wasn’t until earlier in 2021 that I took hold of the reins again and put myself first; put myself in that pedestal and took care of me first. I’d always been enough.

Being somebody that people ‘fall for’ or being told I am ‘too much’ only enforces that I’ve always been enough. It just takes the right person, the right foundations and the perfect happenstances to make these things work.

So head out there, reader, and be easy to fall for. Wander aimlessly with magic in your head and underfoot. Be too much, too little, louder than words, louder than love.

We are already more than enough.