Never Quite Enough

Sandy Rettschlag

3 years ago

I have always wanted to be good, not necessarily the best, but just good at whatever I did. This especially was the case when I would participate in team sports. One of my fears as a child was when being chosen to play games and teams were needed I would never be chosen as one of the first few. This left me feeling bad that I didn’t have the ability or the reputation to be either the most popular or the best at a sport. Consequently, I always shied away from playing team sports.

Having the need to belong was very strong. There are always those kids that seem to be picked first, are the most liked, and things just go more smoothly for them. It was always my fear as a child that I just wouldn’t be good enough.

It has taken many years to overcome this fear. I am sure that I would still feel bad if I felt that I wasn’t as good as everyone else, but I tend to try to laugh it off, or at least laugh at my inabilities. This works most of the time, but it still would be nice to be the best just once.

I remember hating track meets. I always tried for the activity where it wouldn’t depend on me to make a winning result. I hated running so it was no surprise that I didn’t excel in any running activity. In a family of all girls back in the 50s and 60s, there was no one in our family who participated or helped us to excel in any type of sport. That might have helped as I notice the kids that seem to do really well in sporting activities are those that are guided along the way by parents, siblings, or whoever they have.

Another time that I felt I just wasn’t good enough was when cheerleading tryouts came about. I really wanted to be a cheerleader, but on the day of the tryouts, I was afraid I wouldn’t make it and backed out.

It seemed even in our family situation I never felt the best any of the time. As stated several times before in my writings I had an older sister who was the queen of our household. She was the first daughter, the first niece, and got to do and get almost everything she wanted. Then there was my younger sister. She was the princess and was just surrounded with love and admiration. Then there was me who was never the smartest, the prettiest, or the most desired to be within my household. Later on in life, I did actually find out that my thoughts on this were not entirely true. I had a couple of aunts and uncles who shared with me that they thought I was pretty cool. That felt good, but I could have used a little of that insight when I was much younger.

Today I feel this is just how it was and I have, of course, chosen to just go on and be happy with who I am. It just took a little while to come to grips with not always being the best.