Am I Enough?
The origins of our Agreement
In the spring of 2018, I met a man named Daniel Matalon, the complete opposite of me in almost every way. He’s about 20 years older, completely opposite with regards to culture and religion, a never-Trumper, and seemed ready to battle people online. I’m a middle-aged woman, a devout Christian, conservative, and I voted for Trump for his first presidential term. I was in the worst stretch of a failing marriage, escaping the pain by taking any debate I could find on Facebook. It sharpened my mind when depression threatened to swallow me. Arguing online became my only sense of freedom.
Daniel and I spent days clashing over hot-button topics,abortion, gun rights, liberty, human rights, immigration,anything likely to make people fight instead of make agreements. My Scottish side LOVES a good debate, and I came in with a “bring it” mentality. But Daniel wasn’t just debating; he was searching for something which threw me off. He wanted to find agreements. His methods were "different", and we argued more than anything else, but he kept asking how we could find agreement on these topics.
How do you find agreement between someone who is pro-life and someone who advocates for women’s rights? I did what I always did: pulled out historical documentation arguing that abortion isn’t women’s health and that many women felt pressured and later regretted it. I copied and pasted everything I could to prove he was wrong and I was right. I felt justified in calling him names and diminishing his points. It was pride, release of pain, and validation. I’d spend hours going back and forth just to feel better about myself.
A month in, during one of our abortion debates, he said, “I love life! All Human life is as valuable as F***!!”. I paused and said, “I want that on a T-shirt.” Something shifted in that moment. We finally agreed on something. Our first agreement was that human life is valuable. A golden nugget that we can mold into something more permenent, something we can fall back on, a solid TRUTH that we can agree on. I walked away from the computer and sat with that. All life is valuable, but I did not feel that way about myself, not at that moment.
A Hard Reality
“All human life is valuable?” That revelation was in stark contrast to my reality. My husband at the time was a 16-year veteran dealing with severe PTSD after post-9/11 deployments. His self-medication was affairs, drugs, and taking his anger out on me and the kids. The constant instability made it hard to breathe, let alone go to school and care for two children under three.
It all came to a head on July 30, 2018, when his anger reached a point I could no longer endure. Something set him off and he started an argument. I tried to calm him, but nothing worked. This time was more terrifying,he was calm and laughed at the destruction he was causing. He grabbed my arm and dug in his nails while trying to drag me into the bedroom, no doubt to continue what he had done the night before. I tried to call for help; he slapped the phone from my hand. The kids were screaming and crying. I refused to go with him, pulled back with everything in me even though it made him dig his nails in deeper into my arm. I ignored the pain and told him he needed help. He let go of me and went into the room, and I ran to comfort the kids. Something flipped; he came out of the room and looked around and decided to leave and he packed a bag and left. I later learned he went to his mistress in Dallas.
There was silence at last. A peace and dread filled me at the same time in the wake of what happened. It felt like looking at devastation after a war. I sat with my babies, my head pounding, summer finals due the next week, no job, no income, no food, no money it came down to, survive, or give up and die. Daniel would call that a “history or choices” moment. I had many in the years to come.
When I realized he was not going to come back I gave the kids a snack and turned on the TV and walked into the bathroom and collapesed. I started to weeping and crying that deep soul cry where there is no hope left in your soul. I told God that he needed to be my breath because I could not breathe, he needed to be my heart because mine was broken and I had no love left to give, he needed to be my strength because I could not move and he needed to be my eyes so I could see the beauty in the world. I died that day and God brought me back. He asked if I wanted vengenance against them and at that moment I could have said yes but I said no because I have sinned also and he forgave me so I forgave them. I could hear Jesus say "that's my girl, now get up and go take care of the kids, I got you."
We had one month of rent left, paid just before my husband left. Maybe he planned it to ease his guilt; either way, it was a blessing. I took a deep breath and felt a wave of energy enough to assess what I had to do. I filed assault charges; it conflicted me, but I had to stop making excuses for the abuse. When the officer arrived to take my statement he asked if that was his handy work? I was confused, I did not even know my face was swollen. Then I remembered the night before. The officer took a picture and started on with his interview. It is a real sobering moment when you have to face the abuse through the eyes of an officer. I realize that all the excuses I was making was hurting not just me but the kids. Once the report was in I started to call shelters.
The Most Humiliating Moment of My Life
I found one that would take us. The lady said that I was lucky and normally they were full (blessing #1). She said I needed to come ASAP becuse she did not know how long it would be available, so I packed a couple of bags and headed over.
This was the most humiliating moment of my life, having to drive myself to a shelter and leave my home. I was forced to face the reality that I was in an abusive toxic marriage. The bubble of " he just has PTSD and does not mean to hurt us" popped. It was not strength to stay in it but willful blindness to the effects it was having on me and the kids.
Walking up to the office with our bags the women at the desk had me fill out some paperwork and she then went over the rules. If I failed to follow them I would be kicked out. What nonsense I thought, what a horrific reality to think that if I failed to wash a dish I would be kicked out, or if I failed to sweep the floor, I would be kicked out, or if my kids fought or upset one of the other residents I would be kicked out. Who in their right mind thought this was a good thing to do to women who are looking to escape an abusive relationship? I was bearly able to keep my thoughts straight for 10 min let alone remember to wash a dish. I had no choice but to agree.
The shelter room was barely bigger than a closet, two bunk beds side by side, just enough room to squeeze between them, one dresser. It smelled like the cheapest hotel imaginable, and the rug had a thick black coating of who-knows-what ground into it but beggers can not be choosers. I held my babies, took a deep breath and snuggled with them on the bed. The two large suitcases leaned against the wall, the history of our family reduced to two bags. Terror and uncertainty filled the room. I breathed and prayed as my mind replayed what had happened. I touched the swelling on my face and traced the half-moon scars where his nails dug into my arm. I looked at them and felt my heart break a little more, until I went numb and finally fell asleep.
Three other women lived there with their kids. Most had been there multiple times, sometimes weeks and sometimes for months. They were withdrawn, angry, hurt, broken. We exchanged the all-knowing look and mostly kept to ourselves. For many, the shelter was a revolving door of abuse and escape and then back to abuse. I looked around and said, This will not be me.
The next couple of days I secured an extension on my college final (blessing #2), registered for the next semester (blessing #3), got the kids into daycare (two spots opened the day my classes started, blessing #4), filed for divorce which the state paid for because it was a domestic violence case (blessing #5), obtained a protective order (blessing #6), signed up for Medicaid (blessing #7), food stamps, and WIC, (blessing #8) and was able to get math-tutoring job at the college (blessing #9). I got help from my church and my sisters to put what little we had into storage. (blessing #10) When God says He has you, He has you. I had never felt His presence so close; it was like He was literally holding me together and walking me through that month and the months that followed.
Daniel told me to seek agreements, any and all I could find. I felt like a shattered vase barely holding together. Every conversation felt like I might fall apart but I didn't (blessing #11). My body and mind felt broken, it hurt to breath, to move, to think. My faith in God held me through it. Daniel’s voice was also there,strong and supportive.
First Follower Sees Daybreak
Daniel’s words kept returning,about scarcity, agreements, building wealth for everyone, a new human story. If there were enough for people, maybe we wouldn’t need to war or stay in abusive relationships just to avoid the streets. If the world had enough, we wouldn’t need wars, famine, poverty, or fear.
My first agreement with myself was: I am enough with God’s help. I want to create more so everyone can thrive, not just survive. And I’m going to do it with someone I never imagined I’d agree with: Daniel Matalon. You have to start somewhere, right?
Three weeks after entering the shelter, we moved into low-income housing,an 800-square-foot apartment a stone’s throw from the train tracks. You could hear someone fart from the other side of the apartment; it was that small. School was in full swing. I was taking Calculus I and had an approved extension to take my Precalculus final. (Yes I was studying PreCal while all that was going on) I was determined to pass, not just to avoid retaking it, but because failure meant losing my student benefits and being unable to continue college classes. My life had been so chaotic, stop, move, restart, that I had reached the end of my eligabilty for benefits. If I failed, I would no longer qualify for student loans. I needed to pass to keep my job at the college and to secure student aid for the semester. I needed the job to stay in low-income housing. If I failed, everything could crash again, and I didn’t know if I could get back up. (No pressure or anything)
I prayed before the test. It had only been six weeks since my husband left. I had to hold the emotions back and focus on what x meant, what sine and cosine are, and how to read the unit circle. I chose to find power in my pain and to trust that God had a plan for my life. I finished the test and clicked “submit,” took a deep breath, and walked to the front desk to see my grade.
A "C" big as life sat there facing me... I passed by the skin of my teeth. All the scafulding that was holding me together fell down by my side. The dam that was holding my emotions broke. That was the moment I knew I would survive. I staired at the computer screen and started weeping and shaking. The woman at the front desk asked "what was wrong?" I said "I had passed." She didn’t understand why I was crying. I whispered, “You don’t understand,” and walked away. How could she know? I went to my car, prayed, and thanked God for holding me together. Peace that surpasses all understanding. My life was a train wreck, but I felt peace and saw a break in the storm. I had passed. No amout of words could describe the relief I felt at that moment.
In the weeks that followed, every morning I dropped the kids at daycare, drove ten minutes to campus, and tutored math. The car was the only place I allowed myself to cry and heal from the trauma. Something had to change. Is there enough? Is there enough for my kids? Am I enough for my kids?
The Role of the Dancing Nut
Daniel introduced me to the concept of the first follower, its the person that tells other people its ok to listen to someone, its ok to dance when no one else is dancing. I decided to take up this quest with Daniel and help build the Is There Enough conversation. I helped shape the ideas and the way we talk about them. I tried to be more curious than condemning. It was a process. My default is to battle, so I had to work at it. I started asking more questions than waiting to be heard. How can people from vastly different backgrounds find agreements? Looking for that Gold nugget of agreement we descovered months ago. What value will this bring? What is the value of agreements? What stops people from making them? That became my driving force,a healing journey focused on “how can we.” Can 100% of humanity survive?
After nearly seven years of research, the answer is yes. Scarcity is often manufactured to inflate value. We agree to value something; the thing doesn’t decide its own value. Would the Mona Lisa be worth $870 million if we didn’t agree it was? It’s paint on wood, and the painter made other works; there are other artists just as skilled. Da Vinci contributed greatly, but he wasn’t the only one. Many masterpieces involved studios and interns,art historians will tell you that. Why do we put objects from the past on pedestals in ways that keep humanity from evolving? Its so that Mona Lisa CAN be $870 million its all a lie.
Where Does value come from?
What if we made human life more valuable than expensive art? We should, because we are. The “not-enoughness” in the world fuels fear, fear of immigrants “stealing jobs,” fear of lacking, of not being enough, of having no access, of being powerless. That fear drives problems. How do we change it?
Are we enough? Can humanity look past scarcity to possibility? Can we find empathy again and help each other thrive? I believe we can.
Since working with Daniel, I’ve built skills to develop this conversation: reading countless books, watching documentaries, and teaching myself web design, graphic design, project management, and app development. It’s all about asking questions, finding solutions, and settling on an agreement. We’ve created tools that address some, not all, of the common problems people face when trying to make agreements. The fastest way to start is to ask, “Is there enough?”. Then we mine for agreements and identify stumbling blocks using the Core Conversations, seek that GOLD NUGGET of agreement. We’re developing children’s books about seeking and making agreements, a college curriculum, and surveys that spark curiosity about agreement-making. This conversation is alive and always evolving.
I hope your journey into enoughness helps you find your own answer. I found mine, and it changed my life.
A dancing nut
Sincerely
