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Ìý Not long ago, my husband, kids, and I piled into the car for a weekend trip with another family. Once there, both dads fell asleep for a midday nap and we, the moms, decided to let them sleep while we watched our collective four children.

When the dads woke up, we mentioned our plan to get in a thirty-minute at-home workout and asked that they wrangle the kids during that time. Five minutes in, we were doing pushups with toddlers on our backs, squats with kids hanging off our thighs, crunches with children sitting on our stomachs.

And although the dads did attempt to shepherd the kids away, they surrendered with protests of, “We can’t help it! They want to be with you!� And I thought: Wow, this is a perfect physical manifestation of how life feels right now. I’m out there trying to do all the things women are supposed to—pursuing a career, negotiating for higher pay, practicing self-care, dating my spouse, exercising, keeping passably up-to-date on fashion trends—but I’m so loaded down.
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Part of that, I think, is because there’s this burgeoning idea that women having-it-all means women needing to do All The Things in order to feel self-actualized and fulfilled. Meanwhile, I find myself thinking: wait, what—fulfilled? Women are full!

We hear over and over that we aren’t enough. Not thin enough, not pretty enough, not stylish enough, and now we’ve added to it—not successful enough, not professional enough, not tough enough. What’s the natural reaction to hearing “not enough� over and over and over? It’s to take more. To shovel the more onto ourselves so that no one can accuse us of not being enough. We “fulfill� ourselves to overflowing. We spill. We slip.
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And I think where so many women are right now is: Enough! As in Enough Enough.
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One of my greatest joys in life is long talks with my girlfriends. Female friendships are so special in part because women feel close by sharing the details of their lives. Mundane minutia is our social currency. And wow is it so much easier to hear all these life details from a friend, nod your head knowingly, and say, “You’re doing a great job. You’re crushing it� than it is to speak kindly to yourself. The women in my life just GET IT and they do the same for me.

But, let’s be real, sometimes trying to schedule a call or—if you can imagine—a lunch with a friend is next to impossible, what with trying to get dinner on the table and sticking to nap times and online shopping for that blue-of-any-shade bridesmaid dress you meant to order three months ago.

So what I’ve been grateful to find is that certain books can be that sounding board, too. They can make me feel seen and remind me that other women are exhausted and fed up just like me. I hope that if you’re reading this, you might find a knowing head nod from these books precisely when you need it.

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