she writes on sundays

  • on building a library

    on building a library

    I’ve always dreamed of having a place to write in my house that wasn’t my room or the living room. I’ve operated for a long while in the fact that I write better in second spaces than I do sitting on my couch or at my desk in my room. It’s why many years ago I took to walking down the street to Redlight a bar by my house every Sunday for mimosas and words. Sometimes people would join me, most the time I’d sit alone at the table by the window with a steady flow of mason jar mimosas, bugles and words.

    Some of my best writing occurred in that bar.

    But, what I really wanted was the ability to have a space in my home that words could come and in all honesty, where I could be vulnerable with myself without seeming like everyone was watching me. So, when the opportunity arose to takeover a room in my house after the realization that it made more sense to rent the second room that attempt to find a studio or one bedroom at the same price I jumped at it.

    Then life happened. And it kept happening.

    Over and Over.

    And somewhere along the way the empty room downstairs became a space to hold the chaos when it felt it was bursting at the seams.

    In the summer of 2025 when my body was breaking down it became a closet of sorts. Easier to toss my clothes in here than bring them upstairs.

    There were two bookshelves built, one bigger and one smaller. Organized and they truly brought me joy and peace to look at them.

    They were pieces of who I know I am amidst a mess of who life was trying to tell me I was.

    Every time it seemed I began to get a handle on the mess life responded.

    Hospitalizations, fatigue, my dad passing.

    But, I knew, deep in my knower, that this room was important. That it would become a place to move from.

    That it would become a place to honor where I was came from, to honor where I am standing and to be a place to move into what was next.

    That it would become a place of home and rest.

    In order to do it though; I had to find a way to command the chaos.

    We ended up scheduling a family dinner at my house and my timeline was about a month. Here’s the thing: I’m exhausted after work. I work a busy, physical job as someone living with chronic illness. There are some days where I barely make it to my bed after work without being dizzy from exhaustion.

    I also just keep fucking going.

    So it started slowly. I would still come home and rest. I would eat dinner. And then for 20-30 minutes every night I’d pick something. Going through paperwork, hanging up clothes, throwing trash away. Then, I decided to disrupt my bedroom more and I cleaned out my desk and brought it downstairs. I ordered a rug.  Two Fridays ago, I had my housemate lug the two boxes that held two more bookcases into my library. I cleared space.

    I spent a Saturday morning cleaning my kitchen, so it would have a clean slate to cook and bake. And then I built my first bookcase. It took me about an hour and half.

    And I knew then, that I would finish my project and I changed the event in our family calendar to “Meg’s Library Grand opening”

    I did it.

    I made a room filled with chaos become a place to land.

    I think it’s so important to not allow life to write your story for you. To not allow the things that have presented themselves as defining moments to be about the moment but instead to be about who you became from the moment.

    And I think this room is a picture of who I’m choosing to be from the places that I’ve walked through.

    I’ve said it again and again that I’ve had to actively choose to not let all the things turn me into a person I didn’t want to become.

    But, I can’t argue with or disagree with the fact that I am a different person because of all those things. There just isn’t a way around it.

    As I look around this room I can see it all though. I see places I’ve come from, people who mark places in my life even if they aren’t in it anymore. Literally beauty from ashes.

    A city rebuilt on ruins if you will.

    I see someone who chose to do something about the chaos, little by little, piece by piece even when my body didn’t want to body.

    I see someone who decided to not let grief steer any longer or walk ahead of me anymore.

    I don’t know if you’ve been in a place where you’re staring at a space that has no peace or purpose and wondered how you can reclaim it.

    I don’t know if you’ve stood at the bottom of the hill unable to even see the top.

    But, I do know you can do it.

    Little by little.

    Piece by piece.

    Reclaim it.

    Keep fucking going.

    That’s all.

    With love,

    Meg

    PS to see my library follow the link below

    https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPLAtaMnq/

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  • a letter to those who’ve lost

    a letter to those who’ve lost

    I don’t have space to hold more things right now.

    I don’t have the ability to deal with anything other than the fact that as of this week it’s been five years since I heard my mom’s voice, since I got an I love you, since I posted something knowing it would make her laugh.

    I’m trying to figure out how the world really kept living without her. How I’ve kept moving forward without her.

    I don’t really know how to not feel sad anymore. I don’t know how to move from this place where all I can feel is the heaviness of the fact that she still really isn’t here.

    The weight feels even heavier without my dad now. I miss my mom more now because my dad is gone. I miss the connection that I had with her through him.

    I miss missing her with him. 

    Because the person that missed my mom the most was my dad.

    And now I have to live in a space where I miss both of them.

    And honestly, I don’t know how to hold both of those things.

    I’ve had a lot of friends, acquaintances and people who have been put in my bubble of life over the last five years who have lost their parents. People who have never crossed paths with me or who have stepped back into my view since then who are suddenly without their mom or dad.

    And I’m grateful for those people. 

    I hate that they get it but damn, I’m grateful for one other person who gets the pain that I feel.

    I have a picture of all of us. It’s an image I see of a mountain range. It’s a long range with bumps and some mountains are higher and some are narrow, some are steep and some look less treacherous. But I can see people far away walking up the mountain paths. 

    We’re not climbing the same mountain, but we’re all climbing. We can see each other, we can tip our hat and raise our hand to just say “I see you, keep going”.

    I’m so sorry if you’re climbing this mountain with me. I’m sorry you had to step foot at the bottom of it and look up knowing that you are a part of it now.

    I’m sorry that you’re feeling the same type of emotions I am.

    My heart breaks for the fact that this pain is with you now.

    And I just want you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m with you.

    I’m with you. 

    I’m with you.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • when you have to trek through Octobers

    I don’t like Octobers

    I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again and again.

    It’s moments of deep dark depression, of grief, of illness, of vast unsureness, of things that don’t deserve space but take it without remorse.

    I’ve tried so hard to mend my heaviness with Octobers. I’ve tried to brush it aside and say it isn’t following me.

    I’ve tried to ignore it in hopes that the places would become less so than they were.

    But, I just truly don’t like Octobers.

    And I guess there’s something in that. There’s something in disagreeing with an entire month that’s speckled with timestamps and anniversaries. That has so much hurt packed into 31 days.

    How do you move through it?

    How do you find a way to not be bogged down with the things that came before?

    I wish I had an answer.

    I’m sitting here hoping that the words will appear. Things that can bandage the wounds that find a way to rip open even though they’ve long since healed.

    It was an October 18 years ago that the things that are heavy tried to take me under and truly Octobers have haunted me ever since.  

    And of course sitting here trying to rearrange Octobers in my brain, to trying to figure out what to do with all that it is, the answer simply lies in this:

    For every October I’ve hated, I’ve still met November.

    Every.single.time.

    I have survived every October I’ve not liked. 

    I survived and I’ve grown from them and with them.

    I think it’s ok for me to hate Octobers.

    To not like a month that marks moments where my life felt like it might not make it into the next. 

    To not like a month that’s been inundated with loss and depression and hopelessness.

    But I also have to hold in my hand all the Novembers I’ve made it too. 

    I don’t know what month or day or moment it is for you. I don’t know the place that holds more heartache then good.

    I just know if you’re reading this you’ve made it through those days to the next.

    And I am so so grateful for the story you’ve written because of it.

    With love,

    Meg

      

  • From the cave

    All I can think of is that scene in the hunger games when Katniss has to go out to get the medicine for Peeta. She knows it is the only way to save him but to do so she has to take a risk. She had to be willing to take action to get the thing. 

    She had to move.

    She had to risk something to get what was promised to her.

    Because sometimes we have to choose risk to get the thing we need to keep moving forward.

    Sometimes we have to choose to risk so we can get to safety. Like when you’re playing tag or hide and seek as a kid and in order to get to home base you have to take a chance at running through danger.

    To get where you need to be you sometimes have to move through a space that is scary.

    I think right now, I’m a little like Peeta in the cave. I’ve been through a lot. I’m going through the motions.

    But I think I’m supposed to risk something to get to home base.

    Because honestly I understand not wanting to leave a place that feels safe to go through a place that isn’t safe to get through to a place that is actually home base.

    I think I’m too timid right now. 

    I’m not sure how that’s going to change.

    Hell, I’m not even sure what home base is.

    I just know that right now the comfort of sitting on my hands is starting to not outweigh the fear of finally moving. 

    I started this on a Sunday and I’m finishing it on a Monday and I’ll get back to you if I figure it all out.

    I guess I can end it like this:

    Sometimes we have to jump to prove the parachute still works.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • Again and again for camp

    I’ve been trying to think if I have a moment at camp from this year, a conversation, a time, anything with a camper that sticks out.

    There are pieces. Sitting with some LIT boys at lunch who were so polite and respectful to me sitting at a table.

    A camper I’ve known for a few years asking if he could tell me Bible verses in Spanish and then being excited that yes I could understand him.

    Sitting with my best $10 impulse purchase at target of manga blocks for 20+ minutes at the pool with a camper trying to build the creations on the paper.

    Getting asked pre 8am to come to the boys cabins so I could sign a soccer ball. 

    But, this year I think what I truly realized was the impact of consistently showing up.

    I’ve been going to camp for 14 years. There are people who have showed up for 25+ years to camp. 

    This year I was reminded that showing up matters.

    Kids were able to get off busses at a new camp space and see people they knew. They were able to have grounding in an unfamiliar place.

    (Though obviously the first thing a certain 11 yr old boy asked me wasn’t how I was but “Miss Meg how’s your cousin CG5?”- not my cousin but the kiddo of my cousin 😂)

    Seeing them recognize and note people they’ve seen year after year.

    Seeing them know people came back.

    This year while telling my first Bible story I was talking to the kids about who I was and I realized I’ve been flying back to CA for camp for 9 years. 

    I told the kids that. 

    I don’t need recognition for flying, I just need the kids to know that the matter to me to get on a plane.

    I will show up for them.

    Again and again.

    I will show up for the people I serve with.

    Again and again.

    Showing up for those kids matters to me. Because it changes something deeply.

    Showing up rewrites DNA that tells them no one shows up. No one cares.

    Even though for me; it’s one week (physically) a year. It still matters.

    When those kids get off a bus and they see people who have shown up again and again.

    It changes things.

    I don’t know who you show up for or who shows up for you, but I need you to know how deeply it matters that you do.

    I need you to know that your presence absolutely changes someone’s perception of their own self.

    Your showing up MATTERS.

    Whether you believe you bring something to the table or not.

    Whether you say the “right” words or not.

    You just choosing to show up shifts something.

    So please, for all of us, for the one.

    Show up.

  • The year of the porch auntie: RFK 2026

    To my dear Royal Family;

    What a week.

    I’m going to honest; there were so moments over the course of the last year of my life that I didn’t think I was going to get to do camp with you guys this year. Sitting in hospital beds and using walkers and being unable to breath.

    I couldn’t put hope in something that I thought maybe wouldn’t happen.

    But thankfully I had you all to borrow hope from.

    It came in the form of a virtual circle of prayer and a box of cards and treats. It came in the form of texts and messages and so much love.

    And because of that hope I was able to keep moving forward.

    Because of that piece of hope I was able to come to camp.

    And then we all showed up.

    It was a new year, a new campground. New challenges, so many unknowns; from the bathroom systems to the chapel to the menu.

    And I truly believed we handled each moment with grace. I was so completely honored to be a part of it.

    I am so proud of us for this week.

    To the teen staff for running around a new environment.

    To the counselors for dealing with bathrooms and showers and being a little more separated than we have been before.

    To all the different activity spaces and coaches for figuring out how to set up in a new space.

    To the staff waking up early, or staying up later to being present in different ways.

    To the deans for having to rework how they cared for their buildings without actually being in the same building space. 

    And to our directors for handling each question, each logistic, each fire every single day.

    I am proud of us.

    I had so many moments at camp this week, from spa day with the grandmas to making it to 10:35 in morning chapel (or very close to it) every day. Watching the LITs get to be stage crew and be so excited about it. playing mangablocks at the pool and also swimming in the vomit pool (iykyk). Making it through LIT graduation without actually crying. Being a porch auntie. Walking a mile to a coffee shop before camp. Almost tearing up over a bowl of lucky charms.

    It was a good year. It was tiring, it was learning my own limitations and where and when I can move past them (sorry Jana I missed your concert). It was a year of seeing what we could do and then figuring out how we can do it better in the next. It was a year of new possibilities and I believe we took them. It was a year of sitting outside girls dorms at 6am and quietly waving to the counselors as they slipped out to shower. It was a year of stepping into help each other.

    I will repeat: I am so proud of us. We showed up for each other, we showed for ourselves and most importantly; we showed up for the kids.

    I am honored every year to serve with you all. It’s my absolute favorite week for the year when I get to see how each of you show up for the kids. 

    Thank you for showing up with me.

    My prayer for each of you as you read this is that every moment of exhaustion, every bead of sweat and every dusty moment of your days last week are returned to you. That God plants little nuggets along the way   for you to find (like the ducks and sheep’s and the Jesus’s and even that weird creepy worm thing) and that your sleep and your joy and your energy is restored to more than it was before. I pray until we show you at camp again that you are surprised and blessed and reminded, just as I pray are kids are everyday, that you are immensely loved and that what you do matters.

    I have some more tears to cry and more words to write but I can’t express how grateful I am that I got to do camp with you all again this year.

    Just as the kids are a part of my why; all of you Jesus people loving like Jesus are just as much.

    So here’s to the year ahead and to taking these moments and the truths that camp brings with us.

    You are loved.

    With love,

    Miss Meg 

    PS to the text thread- thank you thank you for holding me up all year. Your words, your friendship and your presense in my life even from two states away means more than I’ll ever be able to explain 💜

  • Jesus people who love

    I wrote this in my journal last week at church and tonight sitting outside at camp with a sprite I typed it out.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about my camp “why”. As the Bible teacher my role is to show the love of God through the stories of the Bible that I share.

    To show a Father who loves unconditionally.

    And it really got me thinking: how are we supposed to show the love of a father to some who may have never known it.

    But, no matter what, every year I go with the purpose to be an adult in the lives of these kids who show them love no matter what.

    That’s it. That’s my bottom line.

    Because truly, nothing else matters if they don’t see love in the people who claim to love God. Nothing matters if the people who love Jesus don’t love like Jesus.

    I go to love the kids, the teens, the adults on the mountain. 

    It’s a week of insanity, caffeine,laughter, walkie talkies, singing, dancing, woodworking, activities and (most likely) tears. 

    And there will be a bunch of Jesus people who are loving like Jesus. 

    That’s also my favorite part of camp.

    Seeing humans I’ve known, some for 20+ years, being outside of their comfort zones, away from their families and jobs, loving on and showing up for these kids.

    Every year I go to camp in some ways with a little less than I had before. 

    And truthfully, every year I wonder if I’m the right person, if I have what the kids need, if I’m enough.

    But, in that every year God reminds me that wherever I show up- He shows up. 

    No matter how I’m feeling or if I am less prepared or my body isn’t bodying.

    Wherever we show up He shows up. 

    So right now, on this mountain there are a bunch of people who are choosing to spend a week loving like Jesus so kids can feel the love of a Father.

    And right now; there are kids sleeping in beds getting ready to join us in this adventure.

    If you think about us this week send us some vibes of health and hope and energy.

    With love,

    Meg 

  • 40:WTF

    Last week I said the words “I’m so ready for this hellscape of a 40th year to be over”.

    And honestly, I mean it.

    If you know me, if you’ve read my writing, you know that I’m someone who is fully capable of holding two emotions in my hand. I live by it.

    Because I feel to let yourself be ruled by one emotion- sadness, joy, grief, anger- and not to make space for a second, not to hold the belief that emotions can coexist you will find yourself missing out on the things you can pick up along the way.

    I will not mince words: this year has been fucking hard. 

    Even starting from the beautiful, perfect weekend I turned forty- it was the best, but my body was unknowingly continuing to shut down. I was in pain unable to move quickly, pushing through all of it.

    I feel as if I lost the entirety of the first half of this year. June to December was spent in pain, in the hospital, unmoving, terrifying.

    I spent a lot of the year in grief. Grieving what I had lost: moments with friends, trips, celebrating those around me, being present.  I had to grieve my body and what it had been and what it had become.

    I have spent a total of 3 weeks in the hospital. I spent a good month being unable to walk downstairs with making sure someone was around. I couldn’t get in and out of bed. I would go days without seeing another person. One night walking back from the bathroom my body collapsed at about 2am and I had to lay there to figure out how to pull myself off the floor when I had no strength in my body to do so.

    My list could go on and on.  

    But in all that I also hold strength and hope and the knowledge that all of that; all the hell, that terror, that pain, I got through it. 

    I did it.

    Then, just about a month ago, getting on a plane to try to make it in time to say goodbye to my dad. 

    To be frank, I’m still fresh with that grief. Writing both of my parents obituaries before I turned 41 is something I don’t wish on anyone. Mourning my parents, my childhood and the realization that there is no one on the other end of the phone. Saying goodbye to my dad is something I still haven’t completely come to terms with. 

    This year has been undoubtedly the hardest year of my life.

    Today in church when I 100% didn’t want to be there I heard words incredibly clearly.

    The Lord is close to the broken-hearted.

    I have been utterly broken-hearted this year.

    But, in all of it the Lord has been close.

    He’s been there in every moment where a friend came to hold my hand or help me shower, or take me to an appointment. He’s been there when I’ve been unable to sleep or when I’ve been trying to make myself eat.

    He’s been there in prayer circles and care packages and cards and people showing up.

    This year has been heartbreaking. I have been lonely, in pain, scared, gut wrenchingly broken sad.

    But I’ve been more surrounded in my heartbreak than I ever have before. 

    If you take anything away from this year of my life, this year 40; I want it to be this, please know you can hold two things in your hands at the same time. 

    You can hold hope and grief.

    Joy and pain.

    You can hold strong to the belief it will get better while still feeling devastated it’s happening.

    You can hold two things.

    That’s all.

    With love,

    An almost 41 year old

    Meg

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  • honoring the way he loved

    My father did not like Mexican food.

    But every Friday, he and my mom would go to Deli Casa, a local Mexican restaurant, because my mother loved Mexican food.

    That’s a way my dad loved his bride (he absolutely still complained about it).

    I’ve been trying to think about the things I’ve learned from my dad, the catchphrases (most not suitable for mass publication) and the moments that changed me.

    When it comes down to it, what I’ve learned from my dad is how to love quietly. How actions are love disguised as every day monotony.

    It’s not in the big declarations. It’s how as a manager at FedEx instead of buying bagels and fruit, the day before Christmas for the employees he made fresh Belgian waffles, sausage gravy and had my mom make biscuits. It’s how when he knew I was having a rough time in college he overnighted me a singular pack of Keebler soft chocolate chip cookies because he used to buy them for me as a kid and I called them thank you daddies. It’s how he LOVED his grandkids so much that he went to a KISS concert with his grandson and was so excited about it. It’s how he talked to me about how proud he was of the fathers his sons had become. It’s showing up for people who needed a Santa. It’s how he had nicknames for all of us as absurd as they might have been.

    My list could go on and on.

    I think in the highs and lows of my dad all of us kids and grandkids and observes could say that we watched our dad, papa, Santa love in the quiet and the loud.

    And I can use the Royal we to say that we all got a seat to see how Andy Reeve loved and grew in more and more love and appreciation for his wife.

    He loved his bride.

    I have more and more words I need to write about my dad. I have words I need collect and stories I need to stack stones for, but in this moment I have to be grateful for the ways I learned to love from my dad. 

    More words to follow, more things to be said, but for now I sit with the legacy of love that grew and a love that changed and expanded and became all that it was.

    With love,

    Meg

  • My own 4-letter word

    One of the concepts that stuck with me, that I found so beautiful upon learning about in my Bible classes in college was about the rule of first mention.

    Essentially, when a word was first mentioned in the Bible (the originally translated word) the meaning behind it was how it was meant to be read the rest of the time in was mentioned. When we would do word studies and we’d have to sift through to find the beginning, to find the way it was all tied together.

    I think it was the that I made the connection that God was a storyteller. That he wanted to leave foreshadowing and theme and bits and pieces to pick up. He wanted to leave so that we might be able to untangle story that from first glance have no bearing but when we dig deep we see the unearthed path left behind.

    That the meaning of a word could be more important than just what it says on page; that it could carry story upon story.

    I’ve been thinking about words in my story that grab onto the meaning of first mention that for good or bad has dragged itself through my life and made a mark.

    And one of those words is one I truly can’t stand: resilient.

    And I’ve been trying to go through my brain to find why I can’t stand the word as much as I do.

    I think that some of it is from working with kids and the thought that children are resilient. Something about it always rubbed me the wrong way. It felt like a reaction to kids having trauma or traumatic experiences was not to work on making them better but to respond with “kids are resilient”. It never settled with me that it was the thought.

    And for myself, my resilience felt like a reminder that I had gone through something.

    In a book I read recently by Lacey Day, two of the characters were talking about the word resilient and this is what they said:

    ‘And the worst part? People kept calling me resilient. Like I was some warrior goddess in cute boots’ ‘That word,’ he murmurs, and it’s not just agreement, it’s something low and rough in his voice that makes my stomach dip, ‘I hate that word, it’s a nice way of saying you survived something terrible and we don’t know what to do with your sadness, so here’s a pat in the back and a vague compliment.’

    That’s why I do not like the word resilient.

    But.

    I’m coming to terms with the fact that maybe I’m the one that supposed to do something with the word resilient.

    Maybe I’m the one who’s supposed to be changing the word and what it’s about.

    Over the last 8 months I’ve been told over and over that I am resilient. And truth be told I have to grit my teeth each time. 

    Because I don’t want to have to be resilient.

    But, at the end of the day, I am.

    I have been built into a tough old broad like my mom and I chose to keep fixing going no matter what.

    I am not positive for positives sake but I do choose to move forward even when it feels like the world wants me to stop.

    And those things, those moments, those events have made me resilient.

    They have refined the places that were deemed broken and strengthened the places that got lost in the muck.

    I still will probably bristle at the word resilience. I still will be an advocate of doing everything in my power to not be a reason a child has to learn resilience.

    But, I have to the terms that maybe, I’m supposed to change the way I see the word resilience. 

    I don’t know what your word is. I don’t know what makes you bristle at the mere sound of it.

    But I do know that it probably means you are meant for that word. 

    Whatever it is. 

    With love,

    Meg

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