Did I Do Enough? And Other Questions I'm Tabling in my Forties

Last weekend, I was surrounded by some of the most important women in my life to usher in a new decade. I was delighted and moved that they would travel from far away to toast to my 40th. So much so, in fact, I think I just want to carry the celebration into the whole year.

When is it ever a bad idea to gather people you love around a table?

It made feel something akin to hope for this new chapter. The one in which I want to lean in to :

Elizabeth Gilbert has a quote I return to over and over again about control and anxiety. How we really WANT control, but all we really HAVE is anxiety. Relenquish the control and perhaps the anxiety will abate a bit. It’s been worth a shot.

I’ve found myself letting go one white knuckle at a time old narratives that I have lived my life by. One, with the encouragement of one of my best friends, is never asking this question again:

“Did I do enough?”

When she asked me this week how a new position was going for me, I told her I was having trouble knowing when to shut off the, “Did the do enough?” button at the end of the day. She quickly responding that, “doing” doesn’t add to the value or worth of my life and we’re no longer concerning ourselves with things that don’t align with both so that question is from now on, irrelevant.

It blew my mind.

I return over and over to the idea that I am not what I do.

May this be the year I really believe it.