Enough.
What does that even mean? How much is ever enough? In a world where scarcity is a commodity, our panic drives us to fill the larder. If less is more, then more is better and the most is the least you should hope for.
My late boomer generation felt the sky was our limit and that is was incumbent on us to do better than our parents. “You can do anything you put your mind to,” was my father’s mantra as I scurried behind him trying just to catch up. I was programmed to succeed while setting myself up to fail.
You can have it all. Name on the marquee, house in the country, kids, dogs and a turtle named Teddy. But will any of this make us happy? Who knows? Just keep swimming and don’t look down even if you have to mix metaphors.
I was born Taurus, so red flags that might indicate a warning or slowing down to someone else urge me on with fury. The walls I hit are more reason for me to keep banging my head until something gives way. Know my limits? Really? When I hit the floor there’s always someone to help me back to the bar. Exhaustion is for babies. That’s why the lord gave us coffee. And if the lord sends us coffee, the devil gets the cocaine. The party never ends.
I managed a comedy club in the 80’s. My cousins sold cocaine at the door, the bathrooms were always full, everything was paid in cash and I otherwise ran on coffee and vodka. One night our MC was running later than his usual late. I was holding the show with my stomach grinding when the MC finally rushed in. I tried to upbraid him, but he interrupted me and told me this was his third show that evening, and on his way to the club he stopped at a porn video store to exercise his libido in a cum booth. “Do you think I have a problem,” he asked? and pushed past me, leaping on. stage and punching his way through through a remarkable set. God forgives those who don’t ask forgiveness, I guess.
I was so angry I hit more shots, chugged a coffee and hit the bathroom. I’ll show them.
Show who? Ah, who knows. Who cares. In those days there was always more. Cabs were hungry and always at the ready. Clubs gave way to later clubs that unearthed unmarked after clubs. Those opened their squeaking craws to further under, darker, louder levels of underground where some band with a name you could never utter in work would be slamming out music inspired more by the violent shatter of the subways than any music that had come before.
One time, I couldn’t put it to sleep, trying to outrun my anxiety, and found myself heading into a neighborhood I had absolutely no business being in. It was a horror movie of watchful shadows, burnt out buildings and silence. It was space between the chaos. I was terrified and alive. I walked into a parking lot, as I was told to do. There was one van. I walked around, and there was another world of white kids like me, college kids, and would be rockers nodding out on couches. I took what I could afford with me for the ride home. The sun was reluctantly rising as I got back to the civilization and the subway. I was exhausted and sat on the empty street watching the orange reflection in the new mirrored buildings. I heard birds singing. There was a comic in the club who used to say he was always told birds singing in the morning was meant to be a blessing rather than a curse.
My grandmother used to describe that feeling of exhaustion when you still can’t sleep as being “overtired”. Like a kid walking in circles, refusing to go to bed. Feeding off the fumes. “No retreat,” said the boss, “no surrender.”
Even when they’ve lost it all, addicts fill themselves with recovery, their god, repeated homilies and the need to feel great and wonderful. And that’s okay for them. Whatever pulls you beyond the pit. My recovery didn’t really take hold until I admitted there was nothing more. This was my life. This was what I made of my life. And before I could step into something else I needed to take a long look at this. Good bad happy sad this is what is happening now. And now is all that matters. And rather than fix myself with self-help hocus pocus, or herbal voodoo I needed to heed what I was feeling right now. Rather than joining the societal bandwagon to more more more, I needed to shut the fuck up and sit my ass down.
The Buddhist schools that spoke to me instructed there is nothing to gain, no one to be and nowhere to go. Just sit and let it settle and clear.
In time, rather than being driven by anxiety, rather than measuring myself be what I didn’t have and competing with shadows of my past, I learned the art of listening to me. Not the words, for there are too many words. Just listening or feeling in to when I’ve had enough. When I need to put down the drink, step out of a relationship or turn off the news. Everything can be t0o much until we learn to respect ourselves enough to say “enough.”
Which seems dependent on feeling that we are already enough.
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