On being (or not being) enough

I have two favorite quotes, both by women I consider to have been strong, and beautiful, and powerful. One, which I have tattooed on my back, is this:

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

The other is this:

"You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody." -- Maya Angelou

You see, I have always struggled with seeking approval and feeling inadequate. It started when I was young, and it has become a cycle in all kinds of relationships my entire life. It goes like this: I care about someone, so I seek his/her approval. I fail in one way or the other at getting full approval. I despair, feeling I will never be enough. Sometimes I try harder, and other times I give up.

This happens even with myself. I care about myself, so I seek my own approval. I fail by disappointing myself. I despair, feeling that I will never be what I want to be. Sometimes I try harder, and other times I give up.

***

My first specific memory of feeling this way dates back to the first or second grade. I had just won a writing competition and had fallen in love with the art of writing. I was so excited that finally my parents could be proud of me. I was doing something well.

I decided to write a letter to my grandparents. My dad wanted to read it before mailing it to them. As he read, he became increasingly upset. I didn't know what I had done wrong. I was sharing my gift of writing with them, and nothing I said had been negative.

"Do you even know how to use a comma?" He asked. I don't remember my response. I may not have responded at all. He continued by saying something like, "This is the worst, most ungrammatical, letter I've ever seen. Your grandparents are going to think you are stupid. They're going to think I didn't teach you right. This is an embarrassment."

Embarrassment. I remember that word well. It was used often to describe me throughout my childhood. I was never enough.

I wasn't enough for my father.

***

Another time, the pastor at my church told me I wasn't enough. I was probably around 6 or 7. My family attended a Seventh Day Adventist church at the time, and we had a Sabbath School talent show coming up. I had signed up to do a ballet performance.

After children's group one Wednesday evening, the pastor pulled me aside. He said something like this: "I see you have signed up to dance in the children's talent show. We don't dance in this church. It leads to sin." He reminded me of prophet Ellen White's teaching that "The blessing of God would not be invoked upon the hour spent at the theater or in the dance."

I whipped out my Bible so fast, turning to Psalm 149, one of my favorite parts of the Bible. I showed the pastor the verse that instructs, "Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp."

He paid my protests no heed. Instead, the pastor reminded me, once again, that "true Christians" don't give into worldly activities such as dance, and that following this path would lead to my annihilation in the end times. (In other words, the SDA version of Hell.)

I wasn't enough for the church.

***

Last night, I went to a bar with the attorneys and other legal interns from work. In a conversation between myself, another legal intern, and an attorney, the other intern brought up that I have been married and divorced. I'm 24.

The attorney wanted to know what my rush was? Why did I get married? Why didn't I just live with my ex and wait until we were in our thirties to get married? Was I afraid of living in sin? When I admitted that I still, even post-divorce, don't see anything inherently wrong with marrying in one's twenties, questions continued: Why would I rush again? Why can't I just live with a significant other and wait until I'm older to get married? Don't I know that people change when they turn thirty? Am I still afraid of living in sin? Am I not progressive now?

The conversation touched on some of my deepest insecurities. Not smart enough in the world's eyes: An intelligent person would have seen the divorce statistics and waited to get married. Not good enough in the church's eyes: A pious person wouldn't have gotten divorced, and wouldn't have "lived in sin."

I'm not enough for my career field.

***

These feelings of inadequacy continue today. It's why I struggle to feel like I fit in at school, even though I make good grades. It's why I struggle to feel like I fit in at church, even if I believe. It's why I continue to seek my dad's approval, my grandparents' approval, my friends' approval, my mom's approval, the world's approval.

Part of me wants to rebel against all these pressures, to just say, "Screw it! I don't need your blessing!" But part of me can't stop hoping that others--especially the people and the institutions that are important to me--will love and accept me.

These quotes, even when I don't wholly believe them, remind me that people will never fully approve of me. I will never please everyone, and I often won't even please myself. But that doesn't mean I'm not enough. And that doesn't mean I'm not worthy. Right?