she writes on sundays

Please, compare.

November 12th, 2017

I will never be her. With her poise and command.

With the fear washed out of her eyes.

I will never be of her structure and frame.

With grace and fluidity in each step.

I will never have her beauty.

Eyes will never second look at me.

I will never be someone’s everything like she is.

I will never be someone’s “I will never be that”
This is a black hole.

One moment of comparison lends to 15 minutes, hours, years of self-doubt and second guessing.

Comparison has started to be a more prevalent fixture rather than passing shadow in my life.

It’s normally not in the frame of reference of looks for me, but other areas of life.

Writing about comparison though as a female feels cliche. When men write about it’s very much like those pictures of celebrities going grocery shopping without make up on in people.

“Celebrities: they are just like us”.

But, when a woman writes about it, it seems like it’s just lost in the white noise of life.

Comparing and categorizing is an issue that’s so prevalent in today’s society.

But I ask the question: how are we supposed to not compare?

We do it everyday.

That apple or this apple, coffee from Starbucks or coffee from Woods, reading labels and comparing prices and fits and pros and cons list.

It’s in our minds and how we view so many things in this world.

So why does it surprise us that is so easy to compare people?

I try to trick myself into thinking I don’t compare myself with other people that often. But even choosing to look up to someone can lead you to comparison.

Turning to comparison can look differently in everyone’s life. It can make some bitter and hateful. Unable to celebrate victories, incapable of seeing joy in their own life.

I will be the first to admit that those things have all appeared in my life.

What I’ve noticed lately is that I choose NOT to hang out with people when I’m feeling extra compar-y inside. I choose to stay away from places where I can see what I am without.

As in I’d not be around the people that cause my mind to go to a place that I don’t like.

Neither options are good; the comparison or the lack of people.

Now, I’m not saying that everyone time I’m with people I am creating a laundry list of what I am lacking-I’m saying that when I’m tired and worn out and burned out it becomes so easy to sink into using other people’s lives as one of those mirrors that show all my flaws.

I’m living in a season right now that has a little more anxiety then normal, more tiredness, feeling less successful. And this makes it so easy for comparison to fill in the holes and gaps in my life for why things don’t feel in place. (It makes it so easy for fear to creep in-but that’s another story).

What I should say right now is a fluffy Jesus statement about comparing and about how I should choose to see myself a certain way blah blah blah and things will come in time yadda yadda.

But, obviously I’m not going to say that.

What I am going to say is this:

I bet you can’t get through the day without comparing SOMETHING: be it an apple, a coffee, a label.

So, when your mind falls into the comparison trap of one human to another- don’t beat yourself up.

Instead, take a deep breath and shake it off. Everything around in this world wants to divide us by comparing ourselves or creating an us and them. Or fill the space of people who feel bad about doing it.

Give comparison space to happen, compare prices, restaurants (like, I’m sorry guys, I won’t ever pick Jalepenos) and the way a shirt fits, but when comparison starts to separate you from yourself; take a moment and see what good it brings.

If the comparison brings nothing good, don’t fill your life that.

My comparing black holes don’t bring life or good. But, I can tell you, it’s still going to happen.

But, what I am going (try) to do is use comparison to point out my similarities with people. I am going to remember story and hope that I can filter out the comparison that doesn’t bring my soul life.

So please, compare, highlight similarities you have with people to bring you closer to their story. Find common ground to stand on to hear the ways in which you are different. How someone got from point A to point B. Hear the story of how even though you think their nose is perfect, they’ve always struggled with its shape.

Compare your common ground first.

See what happens.
the leaves always CHANGE

October 15th, 2017

Today, I was standing in church during worship and I had this moment where I felt like myself.I don’t know how to describe it really.
In that moment it didn’t matter who was around me or what I was doing, I just knew who I was-all the way to my toes.

I’ve been playing around with being called Meghan these days. It’s not a big deal, I’m not going to make people call me Meghan or Meg, they can call me whatever they want.

There was a few years there that being called Meghan brought me a feeling I didn’t like. It brought me a feeling of years of insecurity and sadness and depression.

My debit card obviously says Meghan so places that I frequent; a coffee shop, a bar, people call me Meghan.

So when people ask if I am Meg or Meghan I say yes. Both/and.

And it got me thinking:

Do we give people the space to discover who they are because it seems like they should know?
It’s funny to me that as we grow we are called to make so many decisions without knowing even a percent of the information out there. And that’s fine, discernment, intuition, and going with your gut are incredibly important.

But what if when you turned 18 someone handed you a piece of paper and you had to write out all of the food you liked.

And whatever you left off that list you could never eat again.

But then sometimes in your mid-twenties your taste buds change and you are suddenly eating food you never thought.

But wait, you aren’t because at 18 you decided what foods you’d eat for the rest of your life.

We have to do that a lot. From colleges in new cities that become homes to college majors, to first jobs that we find ourselves in ten years later.

We don’t give people space to discover MORE of who they are.

People are fearful of changing their minds, even once.

Yes, there are people that abuse it. They change and bounce all over the place leaving others in the wake of their change and “discovery”. The people who’s resumes look like a not-so-greatest hit album. The single-in a relationship-single- consistently in your Facebook timeline.

But, because of those, the ones who have things happening in their lives and stories that cause them to be in constant motion, the majority of us sit in fear of grabbing onto something new about ourselves.

I will be the first to say that my conversation views have molded and changed immensely in the last 3 years. That things I believed and thought were “right” in college are very different now. That I’ve realized my viewpoints were based in fear and not love.

As silly as this is, my style is immensely different. I’ve walked into a few stores recently and realized that not only do I not want to wear clothes from stores I’ve purchased clothes in for years, but also I simply don’t understand them.

When I claimed Meg four years ago on the world race, it was like I was drawing a firm permanent line in the timeline of my life.

I know it means something right now. That I’ve been introducing myself as Meghan. That I’ve been allowing that piece of me to sink into this part of the story.

That I’ve been trying to give myself space to realize my story, my life is ever evolving.

So, when I started on this train of thought this morning in church, which coincided with the first message on story, I realized that not only was I not giving myself consistent space and grace to evolve and move and change, I wasn’t giving the people in my life that space either.

It would be like me telling the leaves on the trees that they have to grow back exactly as they did before. That even though a part of them was dying and changing, that they had chosen that path so they had to keep going on it.

If I ever haven’t given you space in your story to find something new, I sincerely, sincerely apologize. You don’t need that from someone else since I’m pretty positive you already give enough of that doubt and lack of grace to yourself.

I’m trying to decide what this in me. Who I am separate from my life as a teacher of tiny humans.

But, I feel something I’m supposed to grab onto is right in front of me. And it’s scary because the world has already told me that this is who I am.

I am Meg and I am Meghan.

Let’s choose this week, to be who we are, and give ourselves the ability to keep being and changing.

Let’s not miss something new, because we’ve decided we have no place for newness.
please stop calling my singleness brave

September 24th, 2017

A friend sent me a blog to read last week that was a letter to single Christian women.

I’m going to be honest, I almost didn’t read it.

But I thought, maybe this one won’t tell me that when I least expect it the “right one” will come along.

Maybe it won’t tell me my singleness is brave.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

I have been, for the past couple of days, trying to figure out why I get so up in arms when I read these blogs or books or hear podcasts on the topic.

But I guess, what it is, is that I am only not ok with being single in the moments where I feel like my singleness is a disease. And, if I am being honest, when I read those very lovely, well-meaning blogs about “being brave” and listing a lot of rules for being single, I feel less whole than I should.

When I get told to “live in spite of” I feel as if there is something wrong with having lived without thinking of the fact that I am single.

And it’s funny because I know that this isn’t just a single-married person thing, it’s a kids-no kids, run of the mill job-dream job thing. I get that.

But today, for me, it’s a single person thing. Specifically, a single Christian woman thing.

Being single in the church is not easy.

Sometimes it seems as if we are standing on one side of the street waiting to cross over. Staring at the party on the other side where couples do couple things and get to minister together and have a partner in crime and go to marriage classes and double date.

Then, there are all of us singles. Male and female, watching, living life.

Just on the opposite side of the street.

It’s quiet on this side.

Trying our best to not be defined by something that most in our culture define as being “not quite there”.

So what do we do?

We read the blogs and books and we listen to the podcasts and we join the small groups.

And we don’t feel better.

There are over 2,000 books on Amazon when you type the words “single Christian woman”.

2,000.

That’s a lot of words and thoughts and ideas and advice that people have given and put out into the world.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We are meant to learn from each other’s stories. And take pieces for ourself and figure it all out as we go.

But just like married humans can never fully be prepared for every possible emotion and feeling they will have in that phase of life, us single humans can say the same thing.

Because we could be single the rest of our lives.

I could be a single Christian woman for the rest of my life.

And it won’t mean I am brave. I’m brave for many reasons, and one of them is not for being single.

I am grateful for those around me in relationships that I trust. That I can talk to about these things.

But most of them will never know what it is to be a 32 year old Christian single woman and all of the connotations that brings. I am talking about contemplating owning a home by myself, being an island of a human making decisions by myself and pondering about the moral implications and qualms I have about sex outside of being married.

And I wouldn’t know right know what it’s like to manage a budget with two people in my late twenties or make decisions as a whole or decide on birth control or no birth control.
Neither thing is lesser.

Neither thing is brave.

It’s life.

Let’s save brave for actually brave things.

Let’s encourage people in the paths of life they ARE going down, not where they are lacking, or moreso where we BELIEVE they are lacking.

Let’s not create story for poeple.

Or give them false hope.

Because spoiler alert: I don’t neccesarily want to be single.

But I am choosing to keep walking out my life as who I am.

And that’s not brave.

It’s just exactly who I am.

A mimosa-drinking, tiny human wrangling, story-telling, cake-baking human.

Not brave. Just me.
I don’t like pumpkin spice lattes

September 17th, 2017

All I wanted to do today was sit in my favorite bar and write about how I don’t like pumpkin spice lattes. I wanted to write about not liking them and fall and the darkness that it brings.

I wanted to write about the changing of seasons.

But, all I can think about right now is the bridge I have in my written words.

I’ve learned a lot in my life from mentors and fatherly figures. I have nuggets and advice and wisdom that cycle through my brain.

I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I am incredibly fortunate to have people who choose to make space in their lives to speak into mine.

One of those I reference often is Andrew.

Before I met Andrew I was slightly terrified of him. For multiple reasons, but one main being I didn’t used to/still don’t sometimes, feel comfortable around men in authority.

The first time I met him, a story I’ve told many times in writing, was in a pub in Mijas, watching a World Cup game. I was alive with nerves to start my first day of class and the last thing I wanted to do was meet this man.

But my friend Tiffany made me.

And the first words Andrew ever uttered to me were “Welcome home”.

I say this because I had chosen to trust Andrew because Tiffany did. I borrowed some trust from her just to get to Spain.

Andrew has since then given me a lot of wisdom and even more so he’s given me love.

He taught me a lesson in trust that has stuck with me for a long while. Trust is a bridge. Some hold more weight. Some hold less. But they still hold something.
I had to build a lot of trust in Spain. I had to learn how to trust men in authority. I had to learn how to trust my voice and myself. I chose to trust people that I didn’t think I would and those humans have made my life more full than I could have imagined.

But, the thing about bridges is that they need maintenance.

I was having a conversation with my friend Krys in a loud, karaoke-filled, restaurant about my ability to trust people.

And I have come to realize that I’ve let my bridges get pretty threadbare.

Vulnerability and trust take more practice and maintenance than I have been giving them

I’m not saying I don’t trust people.

What I am saying is that I struggling lately to extend my ability to trust.

I am great at borrowing trust. I am capable of trusting humans because someone I trust, trusts them. Hell, the sole reason I am in Bellingham is because people I trust, trust the people here.

I think the problem is I’ve been living on borrowed trust.

I’ve been building bridges on top of other people’s already built bridges because that, my friends, is the easiest way to not get hurt. I am pretty discerning about who NOT to trust. I know when not to share.

But, that moment where I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I need to share a little more, be a little more, give a little more, I know that I am not walking on the bridge that is built.

When you are in a season of building something, be it muscle, or skills for one thing or another, you can’t just keep doing the same thing. You can’t do the same exercise for weeks on end and expect a different result.

You have to find ways to stretch yourself.

You have to push your comfort zone and create new ones along the way.

And believe me, I know it’s hard.

I’ve been in more anxiety filled conversations than I’d like to admit these days, I’ve been in situations where I push past the curl up in a ball feeling to be present.

I WANT to trust.

I want to build bridges and practice vulnerability.

I don’t like pumpkin spice lattes. That’s surprising to some. It’s surprising that I, Meg, one of the most basic white girls some people know, doesn’t like the most basic beverage of all.

And it’s surprising to some that I walk in anxiety, and a lack of vulnerability.

But, I’m working on it. Again, still, probably always.

I am not working on liking pumpkin spice lattes though.

It’s not going to happen.
But what else is in the waiting?

September 10th, 2017

The last time I felt anger was the middle of June when I shouted the F word multiple times in my work wife’s car. The emotion of anger hides hurt and confusion and usually, disbelief.

This morning in church I felt anger. It wasn’t the anger of June. It was the anger that I felt in Spain. A very specific type.
It was the week Ferg was teaching. He was leading us through some visuals and I remember there came a moment where to me, everyone was wrong. He was talking about the flowers we saw in our brains meant hope and light and a lot of other fluffy words.

I went up to talk to him after, because he was wrong and I was angry. The flowers in my field brought anxiety, depression and a whole hell of a lot of others things.

Yes, in reality I was just angry at the words he was speaking. The words being spoken were knocking against what I found to be true.

Ferg gave me wisdom that week (well, he gave me a LOT of wisdom that week). He reminded me, over and over again, that my words had power, and if the color of the flowers were bringing me anxiety than I could just change them.

I try to use that wisdom in my life a lot “change the color of your flowers”. If you don’t like something, you have the power to change it.

But today.

Today, the anger at words came and I had no ability to change them.

I was in church and I was asking God for wisdom for a friend of mine. Really, I was asking for hope.

And then we sang a song called “Take Courage”. It’s a song that holds hope.

Exactly what I was asking for right?

The lyrics read:

“take Courage my heart.

Stay steadfast my soul.

He’s in the waiting,

he’s in the waiting.

Hold onto your hope

as your triumph unfolds

He’s never failing,

He’s never failing”
That’s great right? A reminder that He is there. The God I believe and have followed and loved, is in the waiting.

And as I sang the words I reached for my journal to write and I realized something:

I don’t think I believe that promise.

And then?

Then I got kind of angry inside.

It feels as if I have a group of humans who are on the edge of something. They might be doing beautifully living life, being present, moving their worlds forward; but regardless, they are waiting for the next thing.

And in the quiet, calm, empty places of their lives, they are reminded: waiting.

I believe waiting is active. I think most of our lives, even rest, are actually verbs. Even in rest we are moving forward. Because rest brings us fullness and fullness brings the ability to become more than we were the day before.

But, active waiting, going about all the things, with all that you are, knowing that it’s been days, months, years, waiting for the job, the person, the epiphany and choosing to believe that after days, months, years, believing that God has been there becomes hard.

Sometimes, I do admit, that disbelief is comparison. Comparing stories and lives and truth. Sometimes the disbelief, is just a plain desire to choose not to believe (which I stubbornly live in occasionally).

Today, though, my anger came from “this, again?”

I was angry for myself and for my friend and for the long list of humans I know that are waiting.

I’m not asking for instant gratification. Please don’t hear that.

I think, I might even know, that my anger is probably not even directed at the God that is supposed to be in the waiting.

My anger is directed at the shame.

Shame is powerful.

There is so much shame in the waiting.

It lives there, ready to pounce. Ready to remind you that you are waiting because you aren’t enough. It’s in the shadows of the waiting. Trying to drag you in. Trying to tell you that you are waiting because you are lacking.

That whatever God, deity, higher power you serve, has decided you aren’t worth it because of xyz that you have done.

It’s just not fucking true.

(I only use the F word when I’m mad and I find myself in a bar sipping a mimosa getting progressively angry at shame).

Shame hides in my waiting. It tells me that I am too much, I am too heavy, I am not personable, I don’t belong.

It creates a long laundry list.

And in the nights of sleeplessness or in the days (I.e. Last Thursday) where I feel not good at what I do, incapable of figuring out behavior of tiny humans, incapable of engaging them. In the nights where I feel like I don’t have a person, Shame waltzes in to leave a note in my room that reminds me that all of those are the reasons that I am “in the waiting”.

This morning, without knowing it, I got angry at a God who is apparently in the same waiting that the shame is.

That’s a lot to take in.

And really, I don’t feel that aggressive about my own waiting right now. I feel aggressive for the humans around me, who feel as if they are in a pause, a waiting.

And I can’t change the color of their flowers.

But what I can do, is try my best, to remember that shame has no place in my waiting. To speak out the shame occurring in others.

And to make space to find God.

Because I still don’t know if I believe he is there.

And as per my mantra.

That’s ok.

(And it’s ok for you too.)
lemon blueberry cake life lessons

September 4th, 2017

I baked a cake on Saturday.

I had this urge when I woke up early Saturday morning to attempt to bake a cake.

Yes, I said attempt.

I used to be a from a box cake baker, blasphemy I know, but when I was in Spain and was going to make a wedding cake, obviously I needed to make it from scratch. I found a great recipe and it worked out incredibly well.
But, sadly, that recipe never translated to the states.

So, on Saturday I decided I was going to take it slow. I was going to make sure all of my mise en place was done and that I didn’t deviate from the recipe at all.

I even purchased a flour sifter.

When I was young, a tiny human if you will, I was a straight A student. I was quiet and kind and did my work.

But, I had one issue:

I sometimes did things too fast.

Mainly, art and handwriting. I was notorious for having to redo coloring sheets and the first paper I ever typed blew my mind.

I also talked too fast (which I blame obviously on being a Reeve woman). But, the talking too fast was something that caused me to have to repeat myself a lot because when I talked to fast I couldn’t be understood. It wasn’t necessarily my fault, as a weird medical issue I had growing up hindered my speech slightly.

It was frustrating.

That constant conscious effort to remember to slow down ALL THE TIME and the terror of speaking in front of class.

Now public speaking and teaching and all that type of stuff is mostly fine (as long as it’s my idea and not an on the fly thing) but slowing down all together isn’t something I’m great at.

There are reasons why I don’t slow down. Part of it is because I’m busy. I need to go, go go and get all the things done. Like on any day of the week at about 1:15 you can find me trying to will tiny humans to sleep because I have 15 things I need to do. I am always at least thirty minutes ahead in my brain transitioning to the next thing and finding the holes.

And sometimes I don’t slow down because I don’t want to pause.

God’s been bringing me back around to things I had long thought were done the last couple weeks. I have been busy doing all the things that I do and attempting to add more to my page and the minute I pause, the thing is there, standing in front of me, reminding me that I still need to deal.

So, I put pausing on my to-do list and keep going.

If I don’t slow down it can’t catch me right?

So, Saturday I slowed down. I juiced lemons and I sifted flour. I mixed slowly and wait for cakes to cool and frosting to thaw back out. I sipped coffee and scrubbed dishes with all the windows in my house open.

I forgot what happens when you allow everything space to do what it needs to do.

My cake turned out beautifully. Tangy with lemon and bursting with blueberries. Moist and spongy and surprisingly light.

I think the next season of my life potentially might involve coming back around to things. Things that go deeper then I thought, and maybe put a mark on my life that I was unaware was still there.

When you over mix cake batter it can get dense and chewy because the gluten will form elastic gluten strands. It ruins the cake.

What happens in our life when we choose to ignore the things that keep coming back because we’ve already dealt with them? What happens when we choose to over mix all the things in our life because we just want to be done?

Slowing down and actually resting is the struggle of my life. I’m going to attempt it more and more and maybe just make the practice of baking when I need to slow down.

So, my encouragement to you is this: find what YOU need to pause. Find the thing that slows your brain and your heart and your whole self. Make that thing a part of your soul work and see what happens.
The mold that kept returning.

August 27th, 2017

To those new to my blog, or to those who don’t know why I blog.

I blog (not all the things) but a lot of them to remind you, that the things you feel inside or hear or want to act on–are probably not true. The things that feel the most ugly or hopeless or cause you to want to head for the hills, most likely aren’t your truth. They are distracting you from it like a con-artist duo who just want your wallet.

I’ve felt more ugly in my life of late–most that I haven’t shared on this platform.

But today, today I want you to know you aren’t alone, that whatever you’ve been feeling or struggling with doesn’t make you less than, that if that thing has come back on a few occasions and tried to get you to be silent because you just must be crazy and no one wants to listen anymore, you are still you–growing and changing and figuring it out.

This is what has been my ugly lately and today I’m choosing not to let it beat me up.

I’ve realized that as much as I’ve tried over the past few years to continually work on who I am as a human there are spots I’ve missed along the way.

It reminds me of our master bathroom in A3. Our walls kept getting covered in mold and every time they’d clean it, it would just come back. They missed tiny parts of it, so it would grow back or find a way to show up again. I think it didn’t even start in the bathroom. It was the wall outside of the bathroom. And then when that was cleaned up the ceiling up the shower. Then somehow the opposite wall. And it turned out the shower pan of our upstairs neighbor was cracked.

We fought with that mold for what felt like too long without knowing where it was coming from.

I’ve fought with insecurities and disbelief in myself and inability to believe I am loved or wanted for what feels like too long,

It doesn’t make sense in my brain not to believe those things. I choose to believe them, but don’t naturally do so. And sometimes in life it’s like they all reach up to connect to this one thing that keeps returning to me.

I think, I believe, there is this tiny spot within me that pops up when everything aligns and it causes me to want to run.

This piece inside of me is small, like the first ant you see in your kitchen before you wake up to a kitchen sink full of them.

It comes with a fierceness and it clouds every other part inside of me that has felt true and real.

There are a couple situations that have come up in my life over the last five days that have stirred A LOT of those feelings up.

I know, that in these situations, there are reasons I want to make choices and decisions that are based on that desire to run. To run from people, emotions, being known. There are pieces of the situations that build to me just want to throw up my hands and say “all done”.

I don’t think I’ve physically ran away from things a lot. But emotionally, spiritually I have closed off and shut down and checked out. I know when I’m doing it and how. I even know how to be “present” without my heart showing up to get stepped on.

I’ve realized I’m much more guarded than I ever thought.

And now, I’ve sat here for ten minutes trying to tie this up for you. Trying to find a way to give you hope.

But I’m a bit in the middle. I’ve tried to become a human who writes from the middle so that I can truly celebrate the end. Replicating emotions in an afterthought never really works for me.

I think though, what I CAN do is paraphrase something my pastor said this morning that hit me between the eyes and gave me hope. He talked about how we are always changing. We don’t reach a point where who we are marks all the boxes of our identity and we can stare at this to-do list that says who we are and be victorious that we did all the things.

We just keep becoming.

And today, when I still feel words and thoughts and phrases tumbling in my head I have hope that it’s a good thing. That I keep choosing to delve into the ugly to find the beautiful. The bitter to find the sweet.

I can’t tell you right here and now that I feel enough to belong. That I feel peace.

But I have and I will again.

And so, my friend, will you.
I’m STILL real.

August 13th, 2017

Here’s the deal:
I don’t want to be vulnerable. I don’t want to put myself out past my comfort zone. I don’t want to tell the boy I like them. I don’t want to jump anymore. I don’t want to be the person who does the thing first.

I don’t want to be strong or independent or resilient.

But what do you do when it seems you need to be all those things?

I’ve spent a lot of my adulthood learning balance.

(I think I’ve come to find most adults spend most of their time learning balance.)

I’ve tried to the best of my ability to be positive. To find light and truth and hope.

In regards to a lot of the different aspects of living I’ve tried to be a human who leads by example.

One of the best compliments I have ever received was from an assistant in my classroom who said I had never asked her to do something she hadn’t see me do myself at least once.

But for the last few weeks (maybe longer, probably longer) I haven’t wanted to live in those places.

I’ve become a standard I am incapable of living up too.

I stepped into Meg about 5 years ago and now it seems too big.

The funny thing is, I’ve always been the person I was five years, I’ve always been kind and loving and helpful.

I’ve always had the almost inability to receive.

But, right now, it seems as if it’s manifesting in the ability to want to not give.

And in the fear of getting hurt again.
I think part of the reason I work with tiny humans is because that can’t hurt me in ways I am incapable of fixing. Sure they can hit me and bite me and yell in my ear.

And sometimes they leave and my heart hurts.

But, they can’t HURT me.

As long as I give them snuggles and pat them to sleep and give them cheese sticks and sometime skittles, we are on the same page.
I haven’t been able to actually write the past few weeks. Nothing has felt real or true or right.

I haven’t been using my voice.

So, I guess in this jumble of words I do have a point. A realization that is the point B to the beginning point A:

I’m real.

I’m hope and love and kindness and I try to pass those out.

But when I feel incapable of those-I’m still real.

I’m not depressed or sad or any of those other synonyms.

I’m just me.

Learning balance.

““Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” (Velveteen rabbit)

I guess what I want to say is this:

To whom it may concern:

When you’ve reached the point where you don’t want to give out love, or hope or vulnerability. When you are wondering if it’s worth it. If you are wondering if you can handle more hurt or failure or being resilient:

Know you are real.

You’ve become.

You got this.

Love,

Meghan

Meg

Me.
anxiety does not = brokenness

July 30th, 2017

I did something I haven’t done in a long while today.
I walked.
Now, I know what you’re thinking “Meg, you walk everyday.”

It’s true, but not like I used too.

Back when I lived in Orange County my friends nicknamed me Moses, because sometimes, when I would get home meandering somewhere in my rainbows my feet would look like I had just walked through the desert.

Today I walked 2.6 miles.

The past month or so, Sundays have been harder than normal.

Going to church has catapulted my anxiety in more ways than I can describe and if I’m being honest I have had absolutely no clue why.

Two Sundays ago I actually almost ran out of the building before having a full on panic attack, but instead, I sat in the bathroom for about five minutes.

(I did bolt out though at the end of service.)

My last piece was about silence. The silence I’d been feeling, the lack of a path, the inability to give love and grace.

I had some things that happened in my realm of existence over the last two months that I am just now grasping the extent of how it caused me pain. I’m also realizing that for the last portion or so of this season of my life I haven’t given myself space to feel anxious.

You might think, oh that’s great.

But the thing about not giving space for things is that usually they end up coming out in some other way.

I’m not a mom, but I think I understand a piece of motherhood, that your children’s emotions and needs and wants come before yours. I spend my days helping the emotions of the 13-15 3-4 yr olds in my room, and trying to balance all the other emotions at play.

That’s a place I’ve been here before.

So today, I walked.

I walked and took deep breathes and listened to worship music and tried to untangle the anxiety that has built inside me.

I’ve done a lot of soul work in my life. I’ve more hours of therapy than I can calculate, I’ve cried in more foreign countries over coffee with mentors and teachers than I thought I would.

And I forget, in the midst of my speeches of “man up or shut up”, “be who you are”the most popular “just do the damn thing” that feeling anxious, depressed, or emotionally empty doesn’t mean I’m broken.

There were times where it did mean brokenness. It meant me, curled up on the floor of my Orange County apartment, crying.

It doesn’t mean that right now.

It means living.

And the process of untangling.

I’ve had up and down struggles with anxiety. I have seasons where I forget it exists and season like now where it seems like a prevalent fixture in my life.

I’m not 100% sure why I felt compelled to write this, but I think I wanted you, myself as well, to have more grace for people.

(I cannot tell a lie-that sentence was hard for me to write).

Wait, I guess scratch that. I sort of don’t want to tell you to have more grace for people. I don’t think I’m there yet.

I want you to allow yourself to have more grace for yourself.

I don’t want you to run. I don’t want you to equal grace for yourself for putting your emotions and feelings on others.

I want you to give yourself space to untangle.

I don’t want you to get so tangled that you become incapacitated.

I think anxiety is trying to rob me of some joy in my life. It’s exhausting me at times and attempting to meet me in doorways and keep from coming in.

I’m no where near the bottom of the barrel that I have been, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to do something about it.

It’s like laundry. I’m awful at keeping up with it (heaven forbid when I have to do more than just my laundry), but if I were to keep up with it and hang it up and put it away when I needed too, it wouldn’t be so bad.

I don’t want anxiety to rule my life (or yours), but let’s try to be humans how don’t let it pile up in corners like laundry so that it seeps onto our carpets and pours out of our hampers.

I think I’ve been letting my anxiety do just that, which is why it’s living in very specific places of my life right now.

So, on that note, I’m going to post this blog and figure out ways to do my anxiety laundry for the week.

And lastly, as always, deep breathes to the toes my friends.

We got this.
Figuring out the silence

July 16th, 2017

I don’t think I talk about my faith a lot. I think I try to live it, I try to let what I do speak for who I am. I try to be kind, try to treat people how I would want to be treated. I try, to the best of my ability to make good life choices that reflect who I am, not who others are.
And today, in church, everything felt electrifyingly silent.

This silence isn’t new to me.

A couple years ago I wrote a piece for a now inactive online journal about my faith becoming broken and sitting in silence.

“It was a weird silence.

Like Jesus, playing the part of the creeper in a horror movie, when just after the power goes out, calls your house so you can hear him breathe and then when the police track the phone call you find that the call is coming from inside the house.

Jesus was apparently in the house still.”

Normally, I write in an effort to untangle something. I write to figure out how to get to homebase.

Right now I am writing to remind myself that I do have Christ inside me.

I think that, for a while now, I’ve forgotten that.

I know the words to say, I have full confidence in my ability to access my faith and my spirit.

But, I’ve lost something.

Recently, I had a situation occur in my life that knocked a lot of faith and grace out of me. I’m realizing how much it effected me as an individual, as a Christian, as a human who tries to extend grace and love to those around me on a daily basis. I’m realizing now, how much it broke off a part of me and caused me, subconsciously, to want to step away from those parts of my life.

It has caused me to question the foundational things of my life. Those things that cause me to love and be kind are still in me, but activating them and using them has taken more effort.

I didn’t realize that it was causing me to question my faith and feel tangible silence, because I was stepped on in a way that I don’t believe I have ever been stepped on.

Back in 2014 while I was in Spain, I had an instance where Kellen, someone who was an adamant speaker of truth and life and hard realities in my life, told me during a stressful, somewhat overwhelming portion of my six months that “I was the leader and I needed to love them through their shit”.

I think that’s what I’ve done since then in different aspects of my life.

And about a month ago I text him to yell at him because I felt like I’d been kicked in the face because of it.

When I started writing today, this isn’t where I was meaning to meander. I just wanted to figure out what was blocking me, what was causing the world to feel shockingly silent.

And over the course of these 500 words or so, I’ve realized that I’m feeling more broken and hurt than I gave myself grace for.

I’ve realized that a new wall was formed and my actions and the way I love people, albeit probably not as much as I feel, has changed.

My whole heart isn’t in it.

But, in that regard, it pushes me on, to know that I am capable of big love.

My need to protect, to be wary, shows that it is still there.

You don’t protect something a castle if there isn’t anything inside.

And the silence I’ve felt isn’t bad.

It’s space-giving.

I guess, what I want to say, at the end of this is that even when it seems like something natural for me, loving people and being kind and giving grace is a choice for me.

Actively. Every day.

Part of it is tied to my faith in Christ, part of it is just inside.

But it’s still a choice.

And that’s ok.

I believe I will get those pieces of me back.

I believe that I will continue to choose love and grace and kindness even if I need a moment to make those decisions.

It’s who I am.

Please, give yourself space to feel. Space to figure things out.

Space to be.

Deep breath to the toes friends.