What Does Enough Feel Like?

I watched my father die knowing he’d done enough, and that he’d excelled. He’d surpassed his level best. He knew, and yet he wasn’t done.

He died in the middle of answering his own personal inquiry. What is enough, for me?

We pathologize the worker, and especially the hard worker. The tireless are seen as compulsive, and asked to ease up a bit, but we don’t know how to care for them or get them to stop long enough to learn to care for themselves.

Dad worked in safety, protecting the worker; but the workers don’t trust that safety isn’t just there for the company. Then there comes my Dad, and he’s really different and before you know it, something has changed and you’ll never be able to articulate exactly what it was about him, aside from the relationships he formed.

From the time I was very small, I trusted him, and so how can’t these big strong men and women? Linemen, miners, construction workers — the people of industry. These are the people who make the world turn for the rest of us.

They’re the ones we don’t think twice about, let alone once. We need our infrastructure, and our amenities, but we don’t realize it is the painstaking work and everyday risks of people, just like us, that put them into our reach.

That was my Dad’s work. Protecting these workers against injury and the loss of life, and asking them to think about themselves first. He loved his work, and alongside his vocal acknowledgement of how messed up we are as humans, and how poorly we treat each other, he loved people.

Here I am in my forties. I watched him work until he couldn’t any longer, and he died chasing the elusive “What is MY enough?” He wasn’t even close. Work you love, in spite of all the parts that wear on you and grind you down, just keeps calling you back.

I also love people. I love working families, who come home and have nothing left to give their children, but keep trying anyway. I love teaching families to interrupt the legacy of trauma, by re-infusing the lineage with other options. We all have a story, and we are the writers of each new chapter. I’m here to help.

I retired from private practice, in the blessed inferno that is healthcare, exactly prior to my father’s first major medical crisis. I had one year to prepare for losing him, and prepare I did. I cleared the decks and started the work of watching. And waiting. And loving the last of him I could get.

It sounds morbid, but one doesn’t usually come back from sepsis on the roadway. Yes, he was found, septic on the side of the interstate one year ago. He’d felt the peaceful darkness, and we got him back. We were so lucky. The internist who later referred him to hospice said, “Ah, so this is your second life!”

People who live in service to others will just keep doing the work. We will do it at the expense of our families. We will do it at the expense of our sanity. Physician and practitioner suicide rates are very high. To work in healthcare is to give long past what’s reasonable. Education, the same. Industry, same.

I didn’t choose to retire. One day I just felt it. Enough. I realized I’d felt it years ago. I’d heard it in the words of loved ones, even back in my twenties. Laughing and waving it off had been a long game.

What is it that keeps us from feeling our own enoughness? I propose it’s not some easily measurable character flaw. We could put on a blindfold and throw darts at a board with words like “insecurity” or “low confidence,” but they simply don’t fit, and there’s that sparkle in the eye.

What is that, don’t you wonder?

I wonder. I’ve seen it in the mirror and it’s daunting. It’s incompatible with proper rest, I can tell you that, and maybe it’s hard on a marriage too, if you’re not careful.

If I’m going to be the keeper of that flame, I’d better teach my children how to manage it. These things have a way of moving on down the line.

And maybe you have it as well, and you can join me in a little experiment. Maybe we could make it part of the way we self monitor, tacking it right onto the end of the easy questions.

Did I drink enough water today? Did I eat enough? Did I appreciate those around me enough? Did I get all my paperwork done? Did I do enough to take care of myself today? My mind. My body? My spirit? Did I feel my own enoughness?

Did you?