Not almost.
Not nearly.
Not with a few more credentials
or one more publication
or the specialization they mentioned
in the meeting where they shook my hand
and told me what a strong candidate I was.
Good enough.
Already.
On the first day.
I need to say that
not because it feels true today
but because it was true then
and I did not know it
and I want the person reading this
who is in the first years of their own contract
to know it sooner than I did.
You are already good enough.
The bar they are raising
is not a measure of your readiness.
It is a measure of what the system requires
to justify not deciding.
Those are different instruments entirely.
I spent years trying to pass a test
that was not designed to be passed.
I got better at the material
and the test kept changing
and I thought the problem was my preparation
when the problem was the test.
I was always good enough.
I know that now the way you know things
that came at some cost,
held in the body alongside the cost,
inseparable from it.
I am not sorry it took so long.
I am not sorry I kept trying.
I am saying that trying was not the proof.
I was the proof.
I always was.
The trying was just something to do
with the goodness I already had
while I waited for the room to see it.
The room did not always see it.
I see it.
That is enough now.
That is more than enough.
Siempre fui suficiente. Lo sé ahora con todo el cuerpo.
I was always enough. I know it now with my whole body.
