Where do I begin...

…my first article?

The name of my publication is really odd, I made it when I didnt understand how substack works, and now I don't have a ‘creative enough’ name to replace it with. So here goes with JB.

‘Creative enough’… ‘active enough’…. ‘tidy enough’… ‘accepted enough’… ‘happy enough’… it goes on and on. The concept of what's enough has been spinning around my head recently, especially with one incedent with my 4 year old the other night.

She was beyond tired, absolutely exhausted, and refused to sleep in her own bed. Excuse after excuse, but no real reasons that I felt were valid.

Things escalated to the point where she is hyperventilating and my husband is trying to calm her. I say “let me look something up” in a desperate attempt to chatgpt some wise parenting.

She turns to me and says through heaving breaths; “mom.. are you looking up how to put a girl to sleep in her own bed when she is too scared to?”

That hit me in the gut.

How do I, as a parent of a nearly 5 year old, not have the resources within me to successfully deal with whatever comes?

My next thought was “what about me is not enough for my daughter?”

I began to spiral, dissociating from the current crisis, only to be snapped back into it by my husband saying “what's next? We need to get this girl to bed.” I finished bedtime in a fog, sitting slouched on her bed until long after she finally fell asleep.

The question remains is my mind;

Am I enough for my kids?

I don't have an answer yet. I've been in the thought tunnel since then, making it through the days but not really living the days.

I'm looking for a light though. What is enough? How do I know when enough is enough? And how do I get there?