Enough by Jon Slifka

A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: Enough. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.

When first we open our eyes to the world,
tiny fists clutching the boundless,
we are cradled as enough--
fragile, infinite, perfect in the gaze of love.
No questions asked, no measure weighed;
we are simply here, and that is all.
 
But the world, sharp-edged and brimming with voices,
sees not the light we carry.
It begins its chiseling,
its carving of worth from the outside in.
“You are too dark,” it says,
“too pale, too slow, too loud.”
“You love the wrong way.”
“You dream too big.”
“You belong elsewhere, but not here.”
 
With every glance, every word unspoken,
the mirrors around us shatter.
Each shard reflects another flaw
we didn’t know we had.
What once felt infinite
now seems confined to the lines
others draw around us.
We shrink to fit their frames,
contorting ourselves to be seen
as something—anything—close to enough.
 
And when we cannot shrink further,
we fall.
Fall into the silences of our own making,
lost in the echoes of “not enough.”
We let the weight of their judgments
shape the way we see ourselves:
broken, unworthy, incomplete.
The soft hum of self-belief quiets
beneath the roar of the world.
 
Enough becomes a weapon.
It shifts and twists in the hands of others--
“You are good enough for now,”
they say, with kindness that stings.
“Is this all you’ve got? Surely it’s not enough.”
“You’ll never be enough.”
The word folds in on itself,
its edges cutting deep,
turning possibility into limitation,
turning wholeness into doubt.
 
But enough is not static.
It moves, it grows.
It becomes a breaking point:
“I have had enough!”
Enough of their rules,
their assumptions,
their smallness that demands
we make ourselves smaller.
 
It becomes a reckoning:
“I am enough for myself.”
It becomes a declaration:
“I have more than enough to give.”
 
Rebuilding begins slowly,
tentative as a newborn’s first breath.
Piece by piece,
we reclaim the shards others discarded.
We stitch together the moments we thought
were too small to matter--
the resilience in our tears,
the kindness in our failures,
the courage it takes to try again.
 
And yet, rebuilding is not a single act.
It is the slow, deliberate sifting of noise.
The voices that once roared “not enough”
still linger, insistent and unyielding.
Their echoes creep in during quiet moments,
whispering, testing, taunting.
So we sit with them.
We let the noise speak,
not to believe it,
but to understand where it came from.
In the clutter of doubt, we search--
for the voice beneath the noise,
the one that is our own.
 
This is the hardest work:
to unlearn the lies we were told,
to untangle the barbed wires of judgment,
to separate the truth of who we are
from the weight of who we were told to be.
But in the stillness of reflection,
truth begins to emerge,
a fragile whisper at first:
“I am enough.”
 
With every step forward,
the whisper grows louder,
until it becomes a steady song:
“I am enough.
Not because I am perfect,
but because I am here.”
 
And as this truth takes root,
our gaze turns outward.
We see the brokenness in others,
the weight they carry
of being told they are less.
But we know now--
we know the lie,
the cruel game of measuring worth.
 
Enough is no longer a question,
nor a weapon,
but a promise.
It holds space for our flaws,
our beauty, our growth.
It reminds us that in being ourselves,
we are sufficient.
 
In their eyes, we see the same glimmer,
the same light that no voice can extinguish.
And so we say:
“You are enough, too.”
Not because you’ve proven it,
but because you’ve always been.
 
Let the world try to tear us down.
Let it question, measure, compare.
We will answer with the quiet defiance of knowing:
We are not perfect,
but we are whole.
Not better, not worse--
simply, wholly,
enough.