When You’ve Arrived
Do you know?
There comes a point in everyone’s lives that they wonder if they are enough. Am I pretty enough? Am I tough enough? Does my partner really love me, or does s/he just tolerate me?
Those feelings can be crippling. I dare to say that if we took a deep dive into the darkest chambers of our minds, we’d find a lot of garbage floating around.
It can take years of therapy, self-help, and external validation in order for us to move forward. This also depends on if there are any additional levels of trauma tacked onto your psyche.
But the feeling of being enough, of total acceptance of who you are, and loving who you are, has high rewards.
The weight and expectations of the world fall away, and you are just left with you. Simply you. Peace, lightness, and possibilities.
That’s the moment you know you’ve arrived.
Many years ago, when I was thinking about going into law, I took a LSAT (law school admission test) preparation course.
I don’t remember much about it, except there was a lot of IQ-like case questions (here’s a bunch of shapes, which shape comes next?), and the professor was a young, smart Filipina who took an interest in me. She likely saw the younger version of herself in me, quite possibly because we’re both Asian. She believed in me more than I believed in myself then, but that’s a story for another day.
One time, when in conversation with her, she mentioned that she just had a baby. What she said next stayed with me throughout the years.
She said, “Before I had my daughter, I wanted to be the best and achieve the highest in whatever I did. After I had her, none of that mattered anymore.”
To her, she might have no longer felt the need to prove anything to anyone. Maybe even to herself. She realized what she had at that very moment was enough, and although she was very passionate in helping others succeed, she no longer had to be the best at it. Her daughter arrived, and so did she.
The first time I had my own version of arriving was a few days before my wedding. My cousin called and sadly explained to me she might not be able to fill in her bridesmaid duties. He husband’s grandmother had died, and in Chinese culture, if you have a death in the family, you can’t celebrate certain things for a year, otherwise, it’ll bring bad luck upon your family.
She was very contrite and apologetic. I was disappointed she wasn’t going to be there, but it was what it was. Later on, she revealed she cried to her husband that she was afraid I was going to be mad at her, and she was surprised at the outcome of the conversation. I was surprised that she was surprised, but that also told me something.
It told me that I came across as inflexible and possibly unreasonable. And that was probably true. I have to say those things were what made it so difficult to get along with my dad all these years, and it’s highly likely I was displaying the same behaviors without knowing it. I can remove myself from the environment, but I cannot remove the trace of genetics.
But I digress.
In that revelation, I started to explore why something so seemingly important for me didn’t trigger anger and expectations. I thought about it for a very long time.
I finally realized it was because I really felt like I had everything I wanted. My life was never as great as it was at that time, and it was so freeing to know, to feel, like I had finally arrived. Working, saving, planning. About to cross a rite of passage that would signify to myself and the world that I made it. That I was finally an adult in my full right.
If you’ve been following my posts, you’d know that that rite of passage quickly turned into another, one that I would rather not take: I am now a divorced woman. I joined the club of has-been-marrieds, and frankly, it’s not too bad. I write about it here why.
Going through, and subsequently healing from, divorce, has been one of the most painful and eye-opening experiences I’ve ever had thus far. Life just basically laughed in my face and said you have no idea what arriving really is. And that was true.
You see, I never felt like I was enough on my own. I needed others’ validation and approval, and even permission, to tell me if I was meeting benchmark, and which percentile I fell in. I needed outward measures of success to deem me worthy of love and respect. And as divorce goes, it quickly bitch-slaps you in the face and takes down every card from your house to bare who and what you really are.
And I was an unfulfilled person, knowing that I deserved self-love and respect, but not knowing how to go about it.
It took years of digging, boundary-setting, reading, and talk therapy with friends to finally overcome childhood issues stemming from my own parents’ divorce, to piece together who I am.
I love the person I’ve become today.
External validation and approval has been replaced by an internal source. I no longer need others to tell me how much I’m worth. I no longer have this great yearning to be liked or accepted; I don’t want or need to change my ways to have people love and support me. I don’t want or need a lot of material things; I don’t want or need to live in a big house.
As long as I am in alignment with my values, and can pass my own ethical and moral compass, I am enough.
It was a long time coming; the road to get there was littered with road blocks and detours, but I’m glad I didn’t give up. I am here with my full self: thoughts and opinions, likes and dislikes, and a lifestyle that is right for me. I feel at peace and wholesome, sure of my choices and pace.
In all sense of the meaning, I have arrived.
