The Shelf.

By Valerie

Today, I confronted my shelf. The metaphorical one that came crashing down almost two years ago and the physical one where I put the evidence of four decades of total devotion to the church I’ve now left behind.

Staring at this had me feeling a lot of emotions. My dad made this bookshelf decades ago, and it is rickety and unstable (a fitting metaphor for the last few years). It has been through more moves than I can count. It leans and wobbles and is tucked away in a guest room, away from little hands that could accidentally pull it down. As I sat in front of it today, with the intent of boxing up its contents, I felt a bit flooded.

I counted. Seven quads (combination Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price), three were mine and three belonged to my husband.  And one was my mom’s. The blue mini-quad that she had marked up during my childhood and teen years. Still with the plastic knife in the binding she used to draw her straight lines. I swiped it from my dad’s house about three months after my mom’s death.

Underneath that quad were my maternal grandfather’s “mission scriptures”—a tattered triple combination (BoM, D&C, PGP) and King James Bible. Then my eyes panned to the Family BoM my sister gave me, with a kind inscription and parts of my family tree. Then the French BoM, the paperback BoM I read in two months on my mission, two Santa Biblias, two “study” BoMs, two annotated Bibles (including the NRSV), my LDS Mission authorized Spanish scriptures, three hymnals, three “Jesus the Christ”s (one in Spanish), and several books by modern LDS authors. And then there are my journals. Fourteen of them, starting with three from my mission. I don’t think anyone looking at this shelf could consider me a “lazy learner” or a “lax disciple.”

I sat paralyzed. And not with my usual ADHD task paralysis. Earlier in the day, I had decided to clean up our guest rooms, and part of that included boxing up and storing the items on this bookshelf. But it took a turn when memories and emotions flooded in.

Two things stuck out to me. One was a jar my sister gave me several years ago with some notecards to write meaningful experiences. The jar had the words “O Remember, Remember.” Oof. Well. Yes. I remember. I remember it, as Queen Taylor puts it, “All Too Well.”

How could I forget? Many of those experiences are seared into my body and mind. I’ll never forget some of them. But they don’t sparkle the same after the hell I’ve been through the last few years. But I remember. All too well.

The other thing is a book by Chieko Okazaki called “Being Enough.” And that title sums it up. I was never enough. Never good enough. Never righteous enough. I was never enough. And I would never be enough. There would always be more to do, improvements to be made, repairs and repentance, service and sacrifice, time and talents and everything. I could never do enough. I was hustling for every ounce of forgiveness and mercy from an intangible god and I was never acceptable with all my parts. That I also remember. All too well.

When my proverbial shelf broke, I donated or trashed a TON of church stuff. This was the stuff I couldn’t part with. Tomorrow it will all either go into boxes and be tucked into a closet or get donated. It will be physical labor. Tonight, I am doing the emotional labor of thanking these items for the role they played in my first half of life. And I am granting them and myself a much needed rest from the labor of proving I’m enough.

Because I know now that I am enough. All of my parts are embraced, accepted, loved by the only being that needs them to be: ME. I accept all of me. I am whole. I am complete. I am enough.

Finally. I am enough.