I’ve been jotting down ideas, thoughts, random and somehow genius AHA moments, that come to me while I’m driving or on the treadmill, possibly getting groceries, drinking coffee. They’re everywhere, all around me.
These thoughts generally turn into chapters, short stories or essays for my book. Which is where this title comes from, “Good enough“.

I’ve been thinking about this one for a long time. Years, actually. How much I struggle with expectations and yet how completely pacified I am by good enough. I am a self proclaimed NON-perfectionist, but I set expectations for perfect. (And then never meet them …)

In the middle of a project or huge decision, I am very decisive. I don’t need to debate or think it over. It is, or it isn’t and we move on. I’m good with those things but sometimes, when I’m not sure, I don’t know how to speak up or say it out loud.

I don’t know how to rise above the mediocre, the good enough. I don’t want a life that is just Good Enough. And yet … I cannot figure out how to get above it.

I can get pushed enough to finally scream these things, desperately, but by that time the wrong people are listening. Or the right people stopped listening. Or both.

It’s crippling, being just good enough. Just past the bar of potential, just enough. Not great or exceptional. And I can go there in my head and be all whiny and poetic about how I want AMAZING THINGS! I’ll dream all day long about the life I. Will. Live. one day but then I talk myself out of it, because all those things? Do they really matter?

But I wake up and today is good enough. It will always be enough but somehow I want more. Is there a date of expiration here? How long do I have to really figure this out before it’s too late?

Sometimes I move around just to make sure I’m here to begin with. I drive these roads and watch the water lap the beach and I make these markers in time just to know I’m here and not invisible or somehow fading. I try to make an imprint, sometimes a big one or a messy one – on roads or dirt paths so I can look back and see the proof.

I need more than Good Enough, I’m drowning in good enough.

But I will be damned if this defeats me. Round up, me – we’re doing this – suit up.