When we've done enough

*DILLIGAF: Do I Look Like I
Give A Fill-In-Your-Own-F-Word

   I had a revelation this morning ... before breakfast and on a very very very insufficient amount of coffee ... that in addition to women coming to the realization that we are "enough" just as we are, we also at times have to say we've done enough.

  We've worked hard enough at a relationship or marriage, struggling to keep it together when we are making more than 95% of the effort for that to happen.

  We've worked hard enough at a job where we are underpaid, underappreciated, and overworked.

  We don't have to be perfectionists.  We don't have to do it all.  We don't have to be everything to everyone at the expense of our own happiness or our own health.

  Sometimes it's okay to shout "*DILLIGAF!!!!" at the top of your lungs.

  I was trying to finish wallpapering the bathroom in a tight and awkward corner which was painted the same color as the opposite wall.  Originally I had realized it was going to be a difficult task and since it is behind the door (when opened) and probably never going to be really noticeable, I would just leave it like that.

  Except I noticed.  I noticed every time I took a shower or went to the bathroom.  Just like I noticed the spot in the opposite corner by the sink where the wallpaper ended abruptly and exposed a partially painted corner because I ran out of odd pieces to fill it in.  The perfectionist OCD I inherited from my father for remodeling and construction projects kicked into high gear every time I brushed my teeth or washed my hands.

  So this morning I woke early, determined to odd patch the walls with pieces cut, like a puzzle, from the remaining paper.  Overlapping a leaf here, faking a matching strip there.

  It was in the midst of wrestling with a long piece in the corner and a razor knife that would not fit where I needed to cut because of the angle and the necessity of actually being able to hold it that I realized it.

  I'VE DONE ENOUGH.

  It's a rental house, and while I'm a renter that takes responsibility for the upkeep of some things as if I owned it, in this particular case, I've done enough.  

  He's trying to sell it out from under me, with no concern for where I might have to go if the new buyers don't want to rent it. [However, the truth is, that he probably won't be able to sell it since it is in a flood zone and has flooded in the past which is making potentially interested parties walk away ~ flood insurance is VERY expensive ~ and tho he has dropped the price twice now, it won't make up for the cost of the insurance.]

  He repaid me for the wallpaper and the paint, but he didn't pay me for the labor ... the hours and hours my OCD made me spend to make it look perfect or kept me awake thinking and worrying about it.  [Not to mention the hours of listening to the ghost of my father telling me I could do better ... echoes of my childhood where I never felt good enough, and nothing I ever did was good enough.  No job I got, no college degree I achieved.]

  In the process of painting the bathroom and parts of the kitchen so far, I have cleaned in places the previous tenant of five years NEVER cleaned. [And let me tell you, that was so much fun.  NOT.]

  So I will finish my projects that will eventually leave this house better than I found it when I moved in.  But I no longer have to listen to ghosts that tell me I'm not enough, or that I'm not doing enough.  

  Because I Am Enough.