This is Enough: Why Sarah Said Yes
If I’m being honest with you, I don’t know exactly why I said yes to creating this Project. I mean, I know the story, I know what’s happened since, I know the enormous amount of good this space has already given to the world. But I don’t really know why I said yes.
There is a part of me that believes I said yes because I didn’t know what I was saying yes to. You know, kind of like marriage. You fall in love, you walk down the aisle and then BAM! You wake up one day and realize that this shit is HARD and you marvel at anyone’s capacity to pull it off for longer than a year.
But pull it off, we have. So maybe that’s it.
I am also inclined to believe I said yes because I needed this… I needed a space for my fat body to belong. After a lifelong, abusive obsession with shrinking myself, I needed to heal. I knew you would heal me if I could just find a way to let you in.
And heal me, you have. So maybe that’s it.
It’s possible that my daughter is the reason I said yes. I am absolutely determined to leave the world a softer place for her body to land, and I knew a task that enormous would require some friends to help me do the heavy lifting. I knew I needed a chorus of courage, full of voices willing to shout above the din that tells her she’s not enough and sing to her when her woundedness feels too big to bear.
You have shouted and you have sung. So, maybe that’s it.
But as I write, I realize all of this is what I might believe NOW, after the most beautifull year of my life.
Instead, what I want to give you access to is the moment before I hit publish on the first post because that’s the moment that tells the truth about my yes.
After spending months bringing together the people and creating the platforms, I almost abandoned the whole idea right before I published for the first time.
I felt silly, like a girl who was masquerading as a woman who had something to say. Like I was playing dress up in heels 6 sizes too big with bright red lipstick painted all over my face. I felt ridiculous for believing I had an idea the world needed.
And so I started to hide behind all of the things I know to be capable of providing me some cover. I was drinking more. I was “too busy” to get everything done in time for launch. I was working on creating a million viable reasons for delaying this thing as long as I could, secretly hoping the idea would move on to someone else who might actually be able to do it justice.
But as I hid there, growing a bit lonely in my isolation, I did the thing you do when you want to be found. I made a little noise. I asked my wife a question that exposed just a small corner of the terror that had taken over my insides.
In the middle of our kitchen, in the middle of the day, I asked:
“Baby, what if no one cares? What if this doesn’t matter to anyone?”
She said,
“It matters to you. And that’s enough.”
She’s a genius, that woman.. and quite skilled at the game of hide-and-seek with me .. which is both good for me and good for the world around me.
It matters to me. And that’s enough.
And for just one moment, everything changed. I found myself willing to do something that terrified me because it mattered to me. Just me. And that was enough.
I want you to know this story because I think it’s easy to write our own stories about people we don’t know. It’s easy to turn them into something other than us, something better than us, something more brave than we could ever be.
You need to know.. I am not that person. I am just like you. I am anxious and afraid and absolutely prone to disappearing on my own life. I am lovable and difficult to love - often all at once, in the same day, sometimes in the same hour. I am certain,. I am uncertain. I am sacred.
You are no different.
Do not write a story about me you are not willing to write about yourself. If you think what I’ve done is brave, recognize that I’ve only held up a mirror to what is inside of you. If you think what i’ve done is confident. know that you are full of the same courage required to create the confidence you see. We belong to each other. Don’t put me on a pedestal now because we are going to need our feet firmly planted on the ground to do the work left in front of us.
And so I want you to come with me, come with us, help us create this world where women belong with substance and with strength.