Not Complaining: a warm welcome

to a place for feeling it all.

You can listen to a voiceover of the entire letter by clicking the audio version below:

Welcome, sweet friends and strangers, to the very first official letter from me to you, in its new form and new home—Not Complaining. In some ways, I feel this newsletter has paid rent in my mind for years and years (10, if I’m being honest)—and in other ways, this is a big moment for me, to make a tangible space to share some writing (and other things), so thanks for being here. Not Complaining is for anyone who’s ever been disappointed, confused, pleasantly surprised, and awe struck by the topsy turvy game of life. It’s for anyone who’s been told by a parent, a rude aunt, or some figure of authority to “stop whining” when you’re expressing the aforementioned feelings. It’s an expression of how very important “complaining” actually is, and how very real your disappointment is when you wake up to find you’re out of coffee filters, or your favorite bar down the street closes up shop. Now buckle up, my dears, because we’re jumping straight in. 

For our first time together, I thought we would explore the vastness of enough-ness. As I enter into yet another new career chapter and adult romantic relationship, and spend time with my friends talking about their careers and romantic relationships, it’s become clear to me that we all struggle with feeling like we are not enough (not working hard enough, being honest enough, communicating enough, the list goes on). At the same time, it’s also apparent that most of us are questioning if our jobs and partners are so-called “right” enough for us, too. So what will it take for us to be enough for ourselves, and the people we love? And how do we trust that the people we love are right enough for us, too?

I grew up with a distinct feeling of not being good. Not that I was a bad person, but that I was excruciatingly mediocre at a lot of things, and not fantastic at any one thing in particular. In elementary school, I was deemed a medium to slow placed reader, but not really slow enough to do anything about it. And by the 5th grade I was hiding in the bathroom while our teacher Mr. Stone (a mostly-grumpy man with the type of kind eyes that prevented you from crying directly into his face) pop-quizzed us on multiplication tables. I would hide in the stall for up to an hour sometimes, just to avoid the terror of being called on to answer a simple multiplication equation that I could never memorize the answers to. In middle school I had a lot of friends in various cliques, which was not celebrated as a talent to get along with many types of people, but rather revered as a chaotic reflection of my indecisiveness and lack of direction. I tried my hand at a number of hobbies before high school: violin, ballet, soccer, tennis, and singing in my room to Evanescence while making collages out of inappropriate magazines like Cosmopolitan. By High School I was blessed with an athletic body and blondish hair, which probably made things a lot easier for me to be honest. My grades were mediocre but passable, and I just wasn’t that interested in anything other than socializing. Freshman year I would skip soccer practice to ride public transit around downtown Portland and smoke pot with my friend Tess. For those that care, I was on Junior Varsity II (which is the 3rd best team… out of three). Of course, there were some big wins, too—I loved to run, and was pretty fast, averaging under a 7 minute mile. My Freshman year, I won 6th place in the State competition for Ski Racing in Giant Slalom, and my Junior and Senior year I had an English teacher that scared me so much I actually wanted to write decent papers, and I did (shoutout Mr. Halpern, who I still see biking around my neighborhood from time to time). 

I’m sure some of you are either heavily relating to my average coming of age synopsis, or you’re the type of kid who was really extraordinary at Mock Trial and got a 3.9 GPA (those types are welcome here, too). Either way, I think we can all relate to the struggle of finding our own identity as younger beings, and being thrust into a world as “adults” at 18 years old, needing to start making “serious decisions“ about our futures. At 18, we’re meant to decide on a path forward based on what we’ve learned about ourselves and the world up unto that point. And when I was 18, most of what I had learned revolved around not inhaling tobacco (because you’ll puke), and (by some miracle) how to parallel park in front of your High School when all of the upperclassman are watching. I’m not exactly sure what I’m getting at here, but I think it’s important to look back at all of the moments you’ve endured, all of the choices you’ve made, and recognize that for many years (at least all of the ones that your parents weren’t feeding and changing you, because you didn’t have strong enough neck muscles to hold up your own head), you’ve been doing the very best with what you’ve got. 

What I mean to say is—there is no way to ever know if we’re doing the right things, or making the right choices. We’re just doing our very best with the information we have. And it has to be good enough, because there truly is no other option (unless you’re one of those people getting “downloads” from some higher power I am yet to be made aware of). As I reflect on all of the good, bad, and ugly choices I made throughout my transition from childhood to adulthood, I can look back with empathy and appreciation for all of the moments I was (and in some ways still am) just trying on different ways of living and moving through the world, to see which ones feel good and which ones don’t. For years I’ve been on a quest to discover some type of work-related identity that encapsulates both my personal values and the skills I’ve acquired thus far. After moving back to Portland from Australia in 2017, I took a chance and opened my own small bread business for a short but sweet chapter. Over the three years that I birthed that bread business into the world, I struggled with holding onto the idea that it was successful and worth doing, when all of the small businesses around me seemed to be growing and thriving, providing their owners with a profound sense of purpose. I know now, of course, that every small business owner is continually making the choice to preserver, despite not knowing if it will be enough in the end. Running a business is like driving a giant truck with a fogged up windshield, down a windy road you’ve never been down before. Except this truck always has at least one broken windshield wiper, and you’re never quite sure if you have enough gas to make it to your destination. Yet again, I struggled to feel like I was doing enough for my business, and making a meaningful enough impact on the world with what I had on offer. I would have stuck it out, I think. At least enough to see through the fog and recognize the beauty and joy of making something from nothing, but just a few years into my entrepreneurial journey, I was presented with a choice. I could keep walking the same path, or I could take a job at a small non-profit and shift into a new chapter entirely. Whether this job opportunity was an escape ladder, or just an open door that had always been there, I’m not sure. Either way… I took it.

Fast forward to now, five years later—sitting at my favorite coffee shop in Ladd’s Addition, dumping my feelings onto a silver platter for all of you sweet, sweet souls. I’m not going to lie to you all (I would never): The last five years have been hard. Like, really really hard. For you, for me, for our entire world. I promise I won’t go in to talking about the pandy now—we were all here, and we all lived it. But in the midst of the global horror and heartbreak, my heart broke, too. My little heart broke into a thousand pieces, and to tell you the truth— it wasn’t bad. The breaking felt like the most raw human experience a person can have (unless you’ve grown and birthed a human baby, which seems like it would take the cake). The breaking, at its core, felt like a deep understanding: That I (and you), am good… enough. That I will never be absolutely perfect, and what a drag that would be if I could. That regardless of the choices I’ve made in the past or will make in the future, I am just me, doing my best—which inherently makes me good enough for the people that love me, too. 

At 31 years old, I’m just beginning to unpack, understand, and explore my enough-ness, and I certainly don’t have all of the answers at the end of this newsletter. So, I’m sorry if you were hoping for a 101 course on how to *believe* that you are enough. But perhaps you can leave our first time together with this: 

As we search for meaning and our place in the world, be it through partnerships, careers, parenting or friendships, remember that every choice you’ve made up until now has been the choice you made with the information you had at the time. And whether you change your mind, start a new career, leave or enter into a new relationship, or decide to set a new boundary with a friend, you are exactly enough right now. And I’m not saying we don’t make mistakes, have regrets and questions about “what could have been”, or fuck up along the way. But, we do make the choice to walk away, repair, forgive, or learn from those mistakes in the aftermath—and those are the choices that make you good, enough. In relationships, no other person will ever be your everything, everywhere, all at once… if you will. If they are right for you, they will be good, enough to stand by you. Good enough to provide you with whatever needs you deem necessary to stay in partnership with them, and good enough to know how important it is to pour their love back into their own cup, too. 

So my friends, gone are the days of thinking we are not good, and that there is such a thing as perfect. We are good, good, enough. That’s my new motto, and I’m sticking to it. 

Thanks for reading or listening to a whole lot of Not Complaining. If you liked what you read, please consider clicking the “subscribe” button to support this next little chapter of mine with a $5/mo membership

Until next time,

C

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