Song 5: You’re Enough

Click the audio player above to listen to Michelle talk about the story behind the song. Or read it below.

You’re Enough- The Story

I spent a lot of my childhood and early adulthood feeling like one of those shapes that go into those Tupperware balls. You remember them? Shape sorters. They were everywhere in the 80s - those red and blue plastic balls with different shaped holes and little pieces that were supposed to fit through them.

As a parent, you experience them differently. They're those pointy little bastards you accidentally stand on and nearly kamikaze yourself trying to launch off before they stab you in the underside of the foot.

Anyways, I felt like the wrong shape. Like life was a pentagon and I was a hexagon - one side too many.

Close enough that everyone expected me to fit. Turn it a little. Line it up properly. Try harder. Apply yourself. Pay attention. Get organised.

I spent years pushing and pushing, trying so hard to make myself fit that I was either getting jammed or losing pieces of myself in the process. Meanwhile, watching all the pentagons slide straight through like it was nothing. ‘See? It’s easy”. 

I’ve been criticised for the way my brain works, chastised, reprimanded and held accountable for things I didn’t yet have the skills to manage, even as a child. I would get in trouble for not handing homework in, despite having no ability to organise myself or my time, and no support system at home to help me do it.

I was in trouble every day in Year Two. Literally every day. Our teacher set homework every night, and every day I would turn up without it. Year Two was torture for me.

Then in Year Five, I distinctly remember my teacher, Mrs O, telling me that I was (and I quote) "the most disorganised child I've ever met."

That might have been true.

Perhaps it was my home life. Perhaps it was my undiagnosed autism and ADHD. Perhaps it was a combination of both. But rather than anyone digging to the bottom of it and helping me develop those skills, I mostly just got in trouble for not having them.

The frustrating part was that I was actually trying.

Eventually, it became easier not to try. Trying my best didn't seem to work, so why bother? Trying made me feel worse about myself. If I didn't try, it didn't hurt so much to be chastised for it.

It was hard having a brain that was both unrecognised as brilliant and over-punished for its inadequacies.

I could read faster than just about anyone I knew. I could learn things incredibly quickly. Looking back, I sometimes wonder what might have happened if those strengths had been recognised and nurtured instead of being overshadowed by everything I struggled with.

I wasn’t put into music lessons. I wasn’t given extracurricular activities. In some ways, that was probably a blessing. If I’d been given even more homework not to do, I would have felt like an even bigger disappointment.

I was never enough and too much all at once. Too loud, too fidgety, too argumentative. Too disruptive. Not organised enough, not diligent enough, not prepared enough. I didn’t apply myself enough.

Every report card seemed to say some variation of the same thing: "Michelle is a bright young student who just needs to apply herself." As if I wasn’t trying. My favourite report ever was my art report in high school, which simply said, "Good luck with music."

It was obvious that art was not my thing. Or perhaps more accurately, art class was not my thing. I love art. I just hate being told what to do with it. Art, to me, is expression, creativity and joy. Art classes were about technique, history and following instructions, and my brain wasn't having it.

At least that teacher recognised that I was actually gifted in something, even if it wasn't art.

Imagine for a second that I never found music. Imagine I never found this one thing that allowed me to pour all those emotions into melody and lyric. All that stored trauma. All those feelings of being misunderstood.

Imagine I didn’t have music to turn to when life got overwhelmingly dark.

Imagine what it would have been like if, when I went through traumatic events, I hadn’t been able to sing out all that hurt. If I hadn’t been able to recalibrate my nervous system through singing and self-expression.

I honestly don’t know that I would have survived.

I know that the years I didn’t do music were some of the darkest of my life. For a few years I didn’t even listen to the radio, because not doing my music was breaking me. The strange thing was that my life wasn’t actually bad at the time.

I’ve lived through genuinely dark periods that music helped me survive, and I’ve lived through relatively good periods where the absence of music nearly broke me.

I think feeling like I didn’t fit in anywhere, combined with the relentless criticism and the feeling that I never quite measured up, led me to believe there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

Like I was broken. Defective. Not a hexagon - a defective pentagon.

But here’s something I’ve come to understand. Bear with me, because I have yet another metaphor for you.

Some people are like dodgem cars. They’re designed to bump into each other, go around in circles, hit the edges and bounce back fast. They’re connected to the grid - a seemingly endless supply of power keeps them running.

I am more like a Ferrari. I need to be serviced regularly, maintained well and have premium fuel running through me. I’m sensitive, and if I bump into things, there’s damage.

I don’t belong at the carnival. I belong on the track.

But put me on the track, where I belong, and there’s not a dodgem car that can keep up. It’s where I’m meant to be. It’s what I’m designed for.

And here’s the thing: dodgem cars are fun. To a little kid, a dodgem car is probably worth far more than a Ferrari they're not allowed to drive.

Ferraris and dodgem cars are not fundamentally worth more or less than one another. They serve completely different purposes, thrive in completely different environments and are loved by completely different people.

We are all a bit like that. We all have different strengths, different needs, different limitations and different environments in which we thrive.

The problem is that we spend so much time comparing ourselves to other people that we forget we're not built the same way. We assume that because someone else can do something effortlessly, we should be able to do it too. We measure ourselves against standards that were never designed for us and then wonder why we feel inadequate.

But a dodgem car isn't a failed Ferrari. Nor does a Ferrari become a better Ferrari by trying to be a dodgem car.

Working in disability has taught me that everyone is valuable, precious and worthy of love regardless of their abilities. It's taught me that it's okay to slow down. It's okay to make accommodations. It's okay to go at your own pace.

In fact, some of the most important lessons I've learned about being human have come from the people I've supported.

Someone I was supporting once wanted to make me a cup of tea. I could have made that cup of tea in two minutes, but it took them nearly twenty. Did I jump in and do it myself? No.

Because they wanted to do this for me.

So they took their time. They went at a pace that was safe for them, and at the end proudly presented me with this cup of tea. They had made that tea with love. Was that cup of tea worth less than all the other cups of tea I’ve had in my life because it took longer to make? I think not.

In fact, that’s one of the most memorable cups of tea I have ever had, and probably ever will have, because it meant the most.

It taught me that while we all have limitations, we can still be of service. We can still contribute. We can still use the gifts we do have to positively impact the people around us.

I will be forever grateful for that cup of tea, and I will never forget the lesson it taught me.

We spend so much of our lives trying to become different shapes, better Ferraris, faster dodgem cars, more productive versions of ourselves. But maybe the goal was never to become something else. Maybe the goal is simply to understand ourselves well enough to stop fighting our own design.

Maybe the things you struggle with are not evidence that you're broken.

Maybe you're exhausted because you've been trying to force yourself into environments that don't fit you. Maybe you've spent years measuring yourself against people with different strengths, different needs and different challenges. Maybe you've been judging yourself for not thriving under conditions that were never right for you in the first place.

The more I've come to understand myself, the more I've realised that self-acceptance isn't about convincing yourself you're perfect. It's about understanding yourself honestly enough to build a life that works with your nature instead of against it.

Because a hexagon doesn't become whole by turning itself into a pentagon. A Ferrari doesn't become a better Ferrari by trying to be a dodgem car. That's a road to ruin.

There was never anything inherently wrong with being different.

The problem comes from believing there is.

As we go through life, things will happen. Especially if we've been trying to fit where we don't belong and pushing past our limitations to prove that we do. We will collect scars. We will make mistakes. We will get bruised by the world and by each other. It's part of the human journey. You can't escape it.

But scars are not evidence that you are broken. And neither are your differences.

If I could tell both you and my younger self one thing, it would be this:

There is nothing wrong with who you are.

Differences are not weaknesses or defects. You are not broken just because you have different needs to other people. That doesn’t make you broken. It makes you human. We all have different needs, different strengths and different challenges.

I would also tell younger Michelle to stop trying so hard to fit into places she doesn't belong. To spend less time comparing herself to other people and more time understanding herself. To get curious about what helps her thrive, what drains her, what matters to her, what her strengths are and what she actually needs to flourish.

I would tell her that life became easier when I stopped fighting my nature and started working with it instead.

We are all different. And we are all deserving of love and respect. And even if no one else is showing you that, that doesn’t take away from the truth:

You are enough.

Live Performance of the Song

Listen & Download

Click the audio player above to listen to the song. Or click the download link to download it to your own device.

YOU’RE ENOUGH

If I could find my younger self and sit with her a while 

If I could find the words I’d want to state

If I could hold her precious face, in these aging hands today 

I’d look her in the eyes and I would say 

There ain’t nothing wrong with you are 

Even the biggest hearts will carry scars 

You’re deserving of the greatest love 

And even if no one else is showing up

You’re still enough. 

You’re enough. 

I’d tell of the things she’ll do, and the person she’ll become 

That she’s as kind and lovin’ as she’s brave 

I’d tell her that her precious heart, is the greatest gift of all

Even though it’s what makes her so afraid 

There ain’t nothing wrong with you are 

Even the biggest hearts will carry scars 

You’re deserving of the greatest love 

And even if no one else is showing up

You’re still enough. 

You’re enough. 

I’d tell her there’ll be days when you can’t see it 

That doesn’t mean it isn’t true 

There’ll be days when you just don’t believe it 

But someone’s watchin’ over you. 

I’d tell her truth… 

There ain’t nothing wrong with you are 

Even the biggest hearts will carry scars 

You’re deserving of the greatest love 

And even if no one else is showing up

You’re still enough. 

You’re enough.

WORDS & MUSIC MICHELLE CASHMAN