{ It’s after midnight. Do not trust anything I say after midnight. I become increasingly ridiculous and tend towards the dramatic when running on little sleep. However, I am still going to hit publish because sometimes after midnight I am brilliant. Here’s hoping today is one of those days. }

I am inadequate.

I’ve known it my whole life.

I’ve known it since those days oh so long ago when my mom told me that my straight A’s were “boring” and my dad told me I talked too much and laughed too loud.

I didn’t know how to get better than straight A’s. I didn’t know how to speak less.

And I’ve spent nearly every day for the past 20 years trying to be good enough. Trying to accomplish more. Shine brighter. Be smarter. Funnier. More kind. More patient. More competitive. Give more. Do more. BE MORE. ( cue Mission Impossible theme song )

And so I say, “Yes, I’ll help with that. And that. And that. And that.”

Until I’m overflowing with projects and lacking in sleep.

And I’m churning out photos and posters and booklets and working part-time in a doctor’s office and agreeing to pick up extra shifts in a cafe and getting a friend’s kids off to the bus and apologizing for getting NONE of it completed as quickly as I’d promised … and then I am asked if I have time to decorate the windows* for a neighboring store front because they heard I was the girl who did that kind of stuff.

Guess what I said …

Go on, guess …

Yes.

I said yes.

And I spent several hours elbows deep in paint and anxiety—for promising another thing that I might totally fail at.

I need a vacation.

I need a time machine.

Because I want to go back and tell 9-year-old-Sarah that being talkative is going to be how she makes so many friends as an adult. I want to tell 13-year-old-Sarah to stop trying so hard in school and maybe take more art and less math, because she’s going to do a lot more art when she grows up.

I want to go backwards so I can tell little me she’s okay, so that GROWN-UP ME can rest and stop trying so hard.

I don’t think I “got this” anymore.

Apologies, friends, if you don’t hear from me, it’s because I’m in the woods searching for a time machine.

*The window paintings were done with my lovely coworker Malia.