There was a time in my life—not too long ago—when I carried a quiet conviction that I had only done enough if I ended up on the couch at night, completely spent. So spent that getting up for a glass of water or going to the bathroom seemed like an almost impossible ask.
Ironically, that was exactly the time when things had gotten easier. My kids were older. Most of them could dress themselves, make themselves a snack, and fall asleep without me right there.
By evening, there was more than just an empty shell of me left. There was this small flicker of energy.
And that’s when a question crept into the back of my mind, one that wanted to fill the space that had opened up:
If I’m not on the edge of exhaustion, have I really done enough?
It took that extreme to make me see the absurdity of what I believed: I had coupled "doing enough" with "being enough."
Last Friday afternoon, I witnessed a wonderful spectacle that helped me pull the two a little further apart.
Setting: A circus tent
Lead cast: 80 excited elementary school kids
Supporting cast: The proud relatives in the stands
I’m sitting among parents, siblings, and grandparents, expecting to see my son and his friends rise above themselves and pull off something that would have been impossible five days ago.
Backstage, you can feel the excitement of the little artists, acrobats, and jugglers. Phones are out. It’s about to begin.
And then Paula and Konrad enter the ring. Dressed in the bright, ridiculous way clowns are supposed to be: bows in their hair that are way too big, a wild wig on one head, pants that swallow the other whole. Four more clowns follow—introducing themselves as the “intermission clowns” who will guide us through the afternoon.
Paula and Konrad are kids no one expects to deliver the most spectacular tricks of the afternoon. Everyone in the stands knows they won’t be on top of the human pyramid, swinging upside down from the bar, or holding a scale pose on the tightrope.
And yet the two of them become the stars of the show.
Paula is a head taller than the rest of the troupe—sweet as can be, and the quiet ringleader. She opens the show mic in hand, delivers puns, and even though you can’t catch every word, her voice is loud, clear, and completely at ease.
Everything about her says: This is exactly where I belong.
Konrad, every time his fellow clowns leave the ring for the next act, takes a bath in the crowd: half kneeling, both arms stretched wide, chin lifted with pride, soaking in the applause.
No doubt he belongs here.
No doubt he deserves to be celebrated—simply because he exists and he showed up.
We've learned to measure our worth by our output—and so we sometimes mistake exhaustion for proof that we matter.
Paula and Konrad are kids who had nothing to prove. Who weren’t the bravest, the fastest, or the most acrobatic. And who still owned the ring.
They moved everyone in that circus tent simply by being themselves.
When did you last feel that you don’t have to perform to be enough?
The magic of embracing that each of us belongs, in our own way, like every tree, every flower, every being.
We belong. That’s an entire sentence. Lovely post Judith!