What does it mean to be enough? 

Enough for who? Parents? Grandparents? Teachers? Peers? Colleges? Coworkers? Jobs? Bosses? Society? The World?

The fact is… you weren’t the best in school, with your decent grades accomplished with late nights finishing homework and studying for tests. 

You weren’t the best at making friends either, usually missing out parties, sleepovers, and hangouts. 

To be honest, you didn’t particularly stand out in sports, music, art, and you weren’t the prettiest either. 

From the outside looking in, there’s nothing special about you. 

So that means you were never enough for your peers, being the weird one that was a little too genuine; or for your teachers, getting mediocre grades according to their standards.

On paper, there was nothing special about you either. Colleges just saw the average grades mixed in with millions of other students. 

Then there was the military and there was really nothing special about you.

So … what does it mean to be enough?

Well, your life isn’t a sob story, but just because you faced difficulties that may or may not have been more difficult than others’, doesn’t mean your struggles are invalid or wrong or unjustified.

Everyone struggles.

Everyone’s life is hard.

But for you and your life… you are enough.

I know that you love with your whole heart and you aren’t afraid to show it. You love so much it hurts.

I know that your family at home depends on you. You are exactly where you should be. Your siblings and your parents still need you, too. 

You don’t need to be the best mom, or daughter, or sister. You just need to be there – and you are. You need to be kind and loving – and you are. You just need to be you.

I also know that you work hard every single day of your life. I know that sometimes that means the hardest days are just getting out of bed, battling depression. Sometimes that means the hardest days are working from home, being a stay at home mom, working drill on the weekends, cleaning the house and making sure there’s food on the table every night. 

I know you feel like a failure when you make a mistake, or you get a little too angry, or don’t show enough affection, or even by saying the wrong thing. 

But regardless of what you think or what you’ve done, you are worthy of love, compassion, and happiness. 

You are enough being you.

Style Score: 84%

To me,
Do you remember the trips we would take to Steamboat Springs every year to see the hot air balloons? Do you remember the smiles on everyone’s faces?
Do you remember how we used to dream of going to college and being an architect?
Do you remember the social struggles we went through—trying to be accepted by people who couldn’t appreciate how different and beautiful we are?
Do you remember the feeling when we left for the military? How it felt knowing we wouldn’t be moving back home?
If you remember all this, then you also remember that first kiss we shared with the love of our life in New Orleans—dancing in the street to the violinist’s hypnotic music.
Then we said ‘I do’, in the town we call our home, and I was blessed to be called step-mom.
Then we welcomed a beautiful baby into this chaotic thing we call life, and he looks just like us.
I know we’ve struggled a lot with anxiety and depression, but I don’t want you to remember that. I want to remember the happy moments with the family and the people we love most in this world.
I hope that looking back, we remember the goals we set and the goals we accomplished. The love we gave, and the love returned. The smiles we put on others’ faces and the smiles others’ put on our face.
I want to remember the happiest moments…
But I can’t forget the struggles, the heartbreaks, and the failures.
The struggles strengthened us; the heartbreaks made us more resilient; and the failures made us continue to persevere.
We are who we are because of the challenges we faced and fought to overcome.
You should be proud of who you are today… I should know! I know you’re always so hard on yourself, filled with self-doubt and apprehension.
You are a strong woman, wife, mother, step-mother, daughter, sister, friend.
I just hope that when I finally get to read this letter in the future, I’ll be proud of myself without doubt, and I’ll be proud of the life I lived.
From,
me
Style score: 100%