The Practice of the Enough

The Practice of the Enough

The perfectionist is my long-term roommate—
I’ve been sharing the interior since grade school, late
to every standard I establish, the bar
set just past reaching, the specific war
of the impossible-enough waged every quarter.
I’m working on the renegotiation, the shorter
reach from the impossible to the done.
The enough: the practice. The practice: begun.

The practice of the enough—the adequate
embraced, the possible made the straight
target instead of the perfect. I’ve been doing this
long enough to know: the practiced bliss
of the completed-adequate is real,
the undone-perfect is the deal
that never closes. The practice of the enough:
the deliverable. Delivered. Good enough.

Some days the enough becomes the floor—
the enough holds and I can add more,
the adequate as the foundation rather
than the ceiling. The practice to gather
the done and the real over the undone
and the perfect. I’ve completed enough to run
the comparison: the enough that’s finished
beats the perfect that’s not. My standard diminished

is not a failure—it’s the calibration
toward the real. The enough: the station
I’m building at. The perfectionist
still lives here, still keeps the list
of the should-have-beens, but I’m the landlord—
I set the standard. I hold the chord
of the adequate, the possible, the done.
The practice of the enough: still begun, still run.