Middle School can be challenging. We’re all on a journey, teachers and students alike, and none of us knows how it’s going to end. You are just beginning to figure out who you are and no one can tell you what or who you are. That’s part of the journey, to figure out who you are. What new thing are you figuring out this week about yourself?

Is it possible to recognize one’s faults and be more than okay with that? I grew up in a conservative Catholic home where it was clear that without the firm guidance of the Church we would all descend into ruinous sin and society would collapse. We were clearly not enough and so prone to evil that we needed to confess our sinfulness in a dark box to a priest on a regular (weekly) basis. And these memories come from the more “liberal” 1960s, when the church services were permitted in English (not Latin). So, yeah, I had no concept of “being enough” until well into adulthood and after a great many traumatic personal failures. 

It’s possible that when my generation became parents we overcompensated for our possibly judgmental upbringing and that made it “too okay” to the point of not even trying. It’s a complex question. I don’t know an existence that doesn’t strive to be “better.” But for me it begins with the feeling that I have already been given so much in when and where I was born and the gifts/talents that I have. This motivates me to not want to waste this opportunity. But, the “better” that I want to be is my choice and not the choice of anyone else. 

My vague memories of middle school aren’t great, but the possibilities were so huge and daunting. One might feel like there are just too voices telling one what to do and who to be or at the other end of the spectrum, feeling like there is no one there to guide one through these confusing years.  I identify with the struggle expressed, even though too often when I see one declare that they are enough, it comes off as insecure defiance. Are you really enough? Is this an empowering belief or whistling in the dark?

Source: I Am Already Enough at Fearless Soul, https://youtu.be/kFQ7qiqm6WA