Am I Worthy

Am I Worthy

John Paul Derryberry

The clock has just rolled past 11:00 p.m., and I'm having trouble sleeping. Tomorrow is Father's Day, and in just a short couple of days, I return to the stage to assist a grieving community through a difficult time. It's been two years since I graced the setting of a storytelling event and three years since I became a father. I find myself asking if I'm worthy of it all. Am I worthy of the love my two little girls shower me with? Am I worthy of speaking in front of a community suffering from the recent suicide of young people? Am I worthy of the love I get from my wife, my family, my friends? Am I decent enough to be a community leader in North Iowa?

I'm not having some existential crisis or doubting the life I have. When we reach certain heights in life, sometimes our brain patterns switch to, "I deserve this," instead of asking ourselves, "Am I living in a way that makes me worthy of other people's care, love, compassion, and attention"? It's a slow switch, where we slowly forget what it's like to doubt ourselves, forget where we came from. We begin to look down upon others as, that could never be me, when we all know damn well a couple of twists or turns in life and it could be us struggling to make ends meet.

And yes, people do deserve these things. There is no soul on the planet that doesn't deserve love, compassion, or a house to call home. It's frequently why I prefer the company of folks who have gone without. They understand how lucky they have it when they have so little, yet others who seem to have everything just end up wanting more and more. The latter folks have stopped asking themselves if they are worthy of the life they are living. They now expect the grandeur without the ability to behave in a way that makes them admirable.

So yes, tonight, sitting in my bed, I'm trying to figure out if the way I conduct myself makes me worthy of the life I live. The cruel irony of this line of questioning is I'm not the one who should answer. That is the problem many of us find ourselves in; the people who think they deserve it answer the question, am I worthy, for themselves. Only our loved ones can answer that type of question. Most of us are too scared to ask it out loud, fearful that the answer may be, I'm not worthy.

I toss the question out of my head to try and get some sleep. My oldest doesn't sleep past 6:30 am. She won't care whether I was up till the wee hours of the morning contemplating life. She'll expect daddy to be rearing and ready to go! And that probably is where this life quandary and I part. The simple fact that I'm willing to do the mental exercise of am I worthy of all this, is enough. It means I know it can all disappear if I don't take care of it. It means I know my actions, not my wealth, possessions, or connections, determine my value. It means I know that I'm not entitled to anything or above anyone. And there is a lot of worth in knowing all that!