Thursday, May 15, 2014

Mamakat's: We Suffice

One of my favorite books of all time are The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson.  I happened upon the first book on the paperback rack at the local library one rainy day when I was in ninth grade.  I was bored, and Lord Foul's Bane looked interesting.  

In a nutshell, Thomas Covenant is a man who discovers that he has leprosy. He is isolated.  His wife leaves him and takes his son, fearing that the disease will spread.  His community cuts him off as well. Covenant is incredibly angry about this, as any normal person would be. He pretends that he feels nothing, that he is numb, that he doesn't need anyone.  He isolates himself.

Until something happens, and Covenant ends up in another world where he doesn't have leprosy, and where the very ground exudes health.  To save his sanity, he denies everything that is happening.  It happens to him anyway, and along the way he meets a number of people who influence him to cast off his numbness and become human again. 

One of those people is Bannor.  Bannor is a Bloodguard, who is assigned to guard Covenant.  As Covenant gets to know Bannor, he discovers that the Bloodguard do not age, and do not die unless killed in battle.  Bannor left behind his wife and family, who have all died over the centuries, and Covenant is horrified at what has been lost. He asks Bannor how he can stand it.

"We suffice." is all Bannor says. 

That quote always come back to me, especially when I start getting down on myself and wallowing in the self-pity trough. 
Suffice means to be competent, to meet a need, to be enough.  

Women are constantly reminded of society's expectation of perfection.  We are expected to be paragons, raise kids, keep a clean house, have dinner on the table, AND hold down a professional career, while working out and losing 5lbs a week. That is a ton of pressure, and most of us are crumbling away underneath that mass of expectation.  But we don't have to be the very best, to be perfect. That's what I love about this quote. 

I suffice.  I don't have to lose myself in a mad quest for perfection. I suffice. I don't have to weigh 117lbs. soaking wet or work out 3 hours a day. I suffice. I don't have to have a pristine house, or be a perfect mother who does everything wonderfully. I do the best that I can, however, and that is enough.

I am enough.  I suffice. 


Mama’s Losin’ It

1.) A quote from someone that has stuck with you.

8 comments:

  1. "I suffice" - I love it! Definitely an affirmation to live by.

    ReplyDelete
  2. what a really beautiful way of looking at your life and yourself.
    If only I could say that to myself more often and believe it, I never feel like I'm enough.

    I think you're amazing, smart, funny, talented. (I don't tell you enough and I want you to know)

    ReplyDelete
  3. This sounds like a very interesting book. I'll have to put it on Ye Olde List.
    I gave up on the whole trying to be the Perfect Female a few years back. As I get older I'm starting to look like a stereotypical crone. My broad mind has not switched places with my narrow waist, I've just broadened my mind to accept and even appreciate my not so narrow waist and my gray hair.
    The Goddesses were not all young and conventionally beautiful. We earthly women are not meant to be either. It would be a very boring world if we were.
    Goddesses also tend not to be very well behaved. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Imagine the anxiety that would be reduced in the world if everyone truly believed it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lovely but wrong - covenant asks bannor how they defend the lords - and the unfettered- without weapons. That's when he says 'we suffice ' that sufficiency may well be earned as you suggest above and iirc one of the bloodguard prevents a lord worshipping lord foul but they fall and fail and are not ak haru kenaustin ardenol or however you spell it

    ReplyDelete

I welcome comments, but reserve the right to correct your spelling because I am OCD about it!