Giving You The Best That I've Got

I’m no longer doing my best.

I don’t want to be the best wife to Adam or the best mom to our kids.

I have no interest in being the best me that I can be.

I don’t want to be the best coach or teacher, the best friend, the best sister, the best daughter.

No more giving my best or trying my best.

I’m done.

. . . . .

This feels like a betrayal of everything I was raised to believe. It feels impossible. And even if it were possible - how could it ever not be completely and utterly wrong?

How will Adam know that I love him if I’m not trying my best? Why would he stay with someone who doesn’t want to be the best wife they possibly can?

WHAT KIND OF MOTHER DOESN’T WANT TO BE THE BEST POSSIBLE MOTHER FOR THEIR CHILD?

A shitty one, obviously. How will my children reach any of their goals if I’m not the best mother I can possibly be? Is motherhood really something I want to stop striving at?

Actually, yes.

. . . . .

A few years ago I began a journey to embrace my own humanity, to heal, and come to terms with myself. I wanted to discover who the hell I actually am and what it is that I truly want and need in order to thrive. I did this work for myself, first, and also with the conviction that it would benefit my children, family, and community.

It’s been a long journey and I’m realizing that it will be a lifelong one. There’s no such thing as fully healed or fully discovered or fully understood - which sucks because the only thing I love more than making lists is checking things off of lists.

I let go of perfection a long time ago and thought that I had done something. But it was a cheat because I had never been all that invested in perfection in the first place. I always saw it as impossible and boring and unrewarding. Still, I patted myself on the back for my ‘growth’.

I replaced perfection with a drive to do what was “best for me” or give my kids what was “best for them” as if by personalizing perfection I changed it into something less impossible. I’ve come to understand that it isn’t. That’s simply perfection by another name.

. . . . .

The idea that your very best could be not good enough is terrifying. How can it possibly not be a judgment on your Self and your worth?

My mother used to tell me that she had done the best she could raising me and it always stopped the conversation in its tracks. What was my pain or my need next to that? How could I ever say that her best wasn’t good enough? That it wasn’t what I needed?

Decades later I found myself saying the same thing to my own therapist, “I’m doing the best that I can.”

“I’m trying the hardest I know how.”

“I’m giving all that I have.”

And yet I was disconnected - so focused on others valuing and validating my best, my hardest, my everything, that there was nothing generative nothing healing, and nothing human about my relationships. They were transactional. I gave, strove, pushed myself and all the while I kept a count in the back of my mind. There was always a tally of appreciation.

Best was a lie I hid behind.

. . . . .

And one day I wondered, what if I don’t try my best today? What will happen?

If I’m not striving to be the best but am simply listening to myself, my kids, and Adam about what it is that each of us need and how we’re feeling - if we’re just stumbling through and fucking it all up and learning and loving each other and no one has a best to hide behind - what then?

If I’m not making the “right” choices or the “best” choices but simply making my choices then there is no defense if I’m wrong, if I hurt someone. There is no shield. There’s nothing but authenticity and that’s scary as fuck.

If I’m simply a human loving another human and raising humans with him - will that be enough? Will I be enough?

Can I explore my needs? Can I rest? Can I share my thoughts and passions and fears with my family and receive theirs in turn?

If I let go of trying to do what’s best for my family how will I navigate my life? How will I know I’m not truly and deeply fucking it all up?

. . . . .

I’ve said for years that motherhood is a series of life and death guesses. Sometimes I say things or write things and I understand them or mean them on one level and then months or years later comes the ah-ha moment when I realize just how true they are.

My choices truly are guesses. I try to make them informed guesses, but in the end, that’s all they are. I can never really and truly know that something was the right thing. Not even after the fact. Because we all keep growing and changing and understanding the events of our lives differently and “in retrospect” is not one fixed point.

I’ve also been saying for years that courage is more important than confidence and I’m now that finally beginning to truly embody that I have to admit that courage is fucking hard. You cannot be brave without being afraid and I’m not someone who generally embraces fear. I’m a Black woman. I’m a Black mom. Why would I embrace fear???

But I cannot fully embrace my own humanity without making friends with fear. I cannot “live brave”, as my friend Shannon says, without allowing fear to be a part of my journey.

The truth is that I was born worthy, that my worth is both intrinsic and immutable. The truth is that I do not need to strive for best. The truth is that there is no one right way or right choice that will keep us safe, secure our future, or bring me the comfort of knowing that in the end everything will be okay.

There is only imperfection, humanity, love, trying. There is only courage and life and death guesses. There is only this complex journey through my life, motherhood, marriage, career.

But there is no best.