Look out, I just had an epiphany!

(I should put a flashing warning sign around this post to keep unwary readers from discovering my greatest flaws, but I have to vent and this seems like a good a place as any.)

I'm not quite sure when this notion first occured to me but I know that it was a gradual onset, like a sickness that starts out as just "feeling off" then lays into you until it's thoroughly gutted your insides. Then again maybe this is a reoccuring epiphany that I forget over and over again just to trick myself into believing the opposite.

Realization: I am not good enough.

I've known this horrifying reality since I was a kid. I was never first place, but I ran a great second. I tried so hard to do my best, but I never seemed to reach the highest plateform and claim my prize. Someone was always better. I realized that I am not a good enough mother the first day I brought Tate home from the hospital. And now that feeling has only doubled to accomodate my daughter as well. I'm not a good enough singer or songwriter to accuratly portray what I'm dying to say. I can put my whole heart and very soul into things and the outcome is always the same. Sorry, your not good enough.

How do people do this: have four or five kids and raise them well, be successful and fullfill their goals and do both with effortless sanity. Then I had another epiphany.

They don't do it alone.

There is an unseen power that flows into these ordinary people, turning them into the object of my envy. A mother who quietly, without yelling, staives off the complete meltdown of a toddler while still having control of all the other children as well. An artist who has the courage to put the feelings of their heart onto paper and trusts their voice and their audience to recieve the message as pure as when they first felt it. These amazing individuals are not perfect nor effortlessly sane all the time. They are not good enough on their own either. There are heavenly hands carrying them and giving them those gentle nudges when necessary. The only extraordinary thing about these people is that they have asked for the help and accept it.

Maybe that's why sometimes I forget that I'm not good enough, because sometimes I too pray for help and it comes just as soon as I need it and suddenly.... I am good enough after all.