Is this enough?

this little life of mine.

“Isn’t it lucky that no one is ever satisfied?” Industry (BBC)

I have never been a competitive person. As a kid I joined a swimming club and cried the first time I had to compete. Maybe it was the thought of losing in front of others that felt too daunting for little me, or maybe the race just seemed too stressful. Not as fun as just swimming.

Life feels a lot like that now, like I’m on the sidelines of a swim race, listening to eager parents and coaches shout and cheer the swimmers on, wandering whether anyone in the race is having fun. I sit on the sidelines with my book and my coffee and think, I’m happy right here.

I spent most of my twenties feeling like I was in a race that I was losing, and this time last year as I approached thirty I spent a lot of time feeling like a non-starter. Nineteen chapters of a novel in the bin, a fresh job rejection email in my inbox, and tears all over my face as I wandered aimlessly around my rented flat. Friends were buying houses and getting engaged and having babies, and all I wanted was to be a fully fledged writer.

I was so desperate to have more.

More money, more success, more acknowledgment for all the hours I’d spent in my free time craned over my laptop spilling words on a page. More direction, more answers. How do I get there? How do I become a published author? A paid writer?

I couldn’t see past the miles of distance that hung between me and my perceived finish line. The failure felt suffocating.

Months later we moved to a house in Surrey at the same time that my partner’s mum Lorraine lay unconscious in a hospital bed in Cambridge. Memories of that time are splintered and fused incoherently, like a broken bone that hasn’t set properly.

I remember long snaking hospital corridors and a symphony of machine noise at Lorraine’s bedside. I remember the overwhelming smell of antiseptic, and kind eyed nurses in green scrubs. I remember sitting on the floor of the flat we were leaving, surrounded by belongings yet to be packed, defeated.

On the last day of the move, I picked up my partner from the train station in the evening. Everything we owned was in the house we’d just moved to. I’d spent the past hour making our bed and rearranging furniture and trying to make what I could look like home. I was desperate to offer him comfort and some small sense of reassurance. We’d spent so long talking about and planning to leave London before finding a place we loved. This day was supposed to be the beginning of something new and wonderful.

But the man I love had spent his day with his brother and father discussing organ donation with doctors. Signing forms and nodding along when they itemised his mother’s body into a harrowing list of giveaways. She was 59.

He got into the car in the dark. We drove to our new home in silence. I showed him around eagerly, wanting so much just to take his pain away, if only for a minute. Look my love, our new home.

His smile was heavy.

In that moment I remembered what he’d told me a few nights before, the same night he realised his mother may never wake up.

“I feel really homesick, like when you’re a kid and you spend the night away from your house. I remember staying over at my grandparents and getting really homesick and ringing mum to come get me. And she always did, no matter how late it was. But now I can’t ring her, she can’t come get me.”

Baby Luke and Lorraine

No amount of money or success or likes on social media would have taken his pain away in that moment. Even if the house we now lived in was one we owned, his mother would still be in hospital, and the doctors would still be asking him to sign forms to donate her organs (which he did because organ donation is incredible).

Now I realise this was the beginning of something different for me, an underlying shift in the way I calculate my life and all its failures and successes. The finish line dissolved, the goal posts moved, and I realised I already had everything I needed.

Like the kind of love that keeps you safe and warm and grounded, a love that listens and learns and reaffirms. Love that is complicated and honest and quietly resolute.

And friends that hold me up and bring me joy and make me laugh until my ribs hurt. Friends that understand we must always try to meet each other exactly where we are.

And a mother who makes me rusks. And a father who says he’s proud. And aunts who live thousands of miles away but still like to check in and cheer me on and make me smile.

Regardless of the fact we can’t afford to buy a house, we have enough money not to worry about how we’ll pay the bills. We have slow and easy routines centred on working from home. We live with a dog we adore. We walk freely in the countryside and watch her chase squirrels and roll in shit with glee, and regardless we think, this is good. This is really fucking good.

We recline ourselves into the sofa on Saturday mornings while sunshine falls through the window, letting our nervous systems hum gently. We tamp down freshly ground coffee beans and breathe in the rich aroma, staring out the kitchen window at the evergreen that towers over us.

The view from the kitchen window as we make our coffee.

As I write this, my body is aching and my bank balance is low but I’m okay, I don’t feel desperate for more. I feel like everything I need is here, in between soft sheets and half chewed dog toys, or else just a phone call away.

And I keep thinking, maybe life doesn’t need to be more than this for now, or for a long while. Despite what the world screams at me daily, buying more and doing more and reaching for more - all I need is this. To love and be loved, and be content.

Just my partner and my dog and a hot chocolate, and phone calls with my parents, and some dinner with friends. Sporadic WhatsApp messages from people I love who live in other places. Good TV on weekday evenings and swim dates on Sunday mornings. Games nights and the odd glass of good wine. Podcast chats, Substack posts, and a really good book.

I suppose all I’m trying to say is that I’m grateful for this tiny little life of mine, and everyone who exists within it. I’m grateful to be alive and writing these words, and grateful for the people who choose to read them.

Big hugs and love

Jess