From the Files: Enough

Originally posted on September 2, 2021, on Facebook.

It’s been more than six years since I asked myself “what is the point of all this?”

At that time it didn’t look like there was any point.

But there was. There is.

Today, I’m sitting on the porch railing listening to the rain fall. If I reach my fingers out a few inches, I can feel the drops, cold and fresh against my skin. It is still early, and the air is cold. I am bundled in a flannel shirt and my breakfast is on the railing next to me.

There’s nothing fancy or expensive or momentous about this: my flannel shirt is well loved and worn, there is a cobweb overhead for my back porch spider, and none of my dishes match. I have to go to work in an hour.

But the food on my plate is fresh, from a farm down the road, and the coffee is cold brew I made myself, and this house is a space that I can call my own, at least for now.

There is gas in the truck to get me to work and a few dollars tucked in my wallet for iced coffee when I go to town tomorrow.

Most importantly, there is peace.

When I was asking myself “what’s the point?” it wasn’t because I felt nothing–it was because I felt everything, and I was drowning.

It took time and hard work, and there is still work to do, but there is peace here on the back porch railing with the rain falling.

There are birds singing in the trees at the back of the yard.

Someone told me that when I asked myself “what’s the point?” I needed to put my foot down and MAKE a point.

Something tiny, like ‘next week the grocery store has a sale on my favorite fruit’ or something huge, like ‘there are still mountains I haven’t climbed’.

There are people I haven’t met and songs I haven’t heard and books I haven’t read. There are rainy mornings waiting for me, and sunny ones too.

One of these days I will coax the song birds to eat out of my hand.

I am here and that is enough.

I am here.

And so are you.

I love you.

Thanks for reading. It means the world to me. All my love.

–A