she writes on sundays

Choose your grief

August 26th, 2024

I’ve come to an immense realization today while texting my friend Emily and I’m going to try incredibly hard to articulate it.

I’ve been trying to make peace with myself the last 6 months: that the darkness I feel is not my darkness. That the light I have inside is stronger than the darkness that tries to cover me.

But, I’ve also spent the last 6 months numb to a point. If I’m not around people, if I’m home, if I’m alone it’s almost as if I have no emotions. Like I’m a vampire in Vampire Diaries and I’ve turned the switch off on my emotions and I just feel nothing.

The numbness has made me battle the thing I’ve struggled with and pushed against most of my adult life: that I’m fake. That people think less of me for my inability to push through.

That I’m not strong.

A couple Sundays ago at church I was told about my strength, and I’ve had to listen to it a few times because I just don’t believe it.

I would like to say I know those things aren’t true aren’t actually true. And the things that are: are. But sometimes, it’s hard to believe in things even when you know they aren’t true or are true.

And for as honest as I am in my writing, as honest as I’ve been. As many things as I’ve said that are difficult for me to say, I know that there have been things I haven’t been able to figure out.

I’m realizing today though something I’ve left a bit behind in my grieving: I need to grieve the person that I thought I was going to become at this point in my life as opposed to the person I’ve become because of the circumstances I’ve faced.

On Sunday I cried for her. I cried for all the ways grief and pain have made me motionless. I cried for the ways the burnout changed how I look at life and the ways I look at the profession I feel so confident in.

I cried for the person who was on the brink of coming back home to herself and then had a house dropped on her and she had to start the process again.

I cried for all the things that have broken me and all the ways I feel broken.

And I cried for all the times I couldn’t text or call my mom to tell her any of it.

We don’t just grieve the people that left, or the places that we had to walk away from or even the things that made us feel less than we are.

We have to grieve the person that would have been without all those things.

We have to grieve the person that would be sitting in our place had none of it occurred.

We have to grieve the other path that got left in dust.

We have to grieve the us that would have been.

And I think that I’ve been holding that woman for awhile.

I think yesterday sitting on my couch crying, I stared at her. I looked and wonder who she was now. Where she lived. What her body looked like.

What she was still doing.

I wanted to ask her questions. I wanted to know in my knower that she was strong in all the ways I currently am not.

I want to know she would have been ok, on that other path.

I know I’m ok on this path.

If I wasn’t; not to mince words, I probably just wouldn’t be here anymore.

I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that all of my houses that have fallen on me over the last 3 years fell in the correct order.

I’m not saying the houses had to happen- like they happened for a reason- but at the end of the day the storm was going to come and the houses were going to drop.

I grieve my mom every day. Sometimes subconsciously, sometimes incredibly consciously.

My grief isn’t always joyous. I just don’t grieve that conversations that could never be, but I grieve the conversations that were, the ones that sliced like a knife.

I grieve the quiet, still moments.

And all along the way I have to grieve the other part of me.

I have to grieve the person who felt like she had a handle on the things that were broken.

And in a way, I have to grieve the person that accepts that they are broken.

It’s weird, but I feel lighter now. Lighter with the knowledge that I’m beginning to realize it isn’t actually me. It’s the ghost of the me that never was.

Almost as if I’m being chased by the thing that I can’t ever be because I have become who I am.

Bottom line:

Grief is a bitch.

It has more twists and turns than we can ever account for.

We don’t just grieve death. We grieve divorce, we grieve what illness takes away. We grieve friendships that took. We grieve jobs that became places we had to walk away from in spite of.

We grieve faith we’ve had to leave behind in pursuit of the truth that heals us.

We grieve the death of things that still follow us around.

I know I’m not going to finish this pour of whiskey and walk out of this bar and be healed.

I know I’m not going to automatically be able to actually fall asleep before 2 am.

(I know I have friends who would yell at me for those statements).

But I do that I am looking in the correct mirror now.

I don’t what you’re grieving.

I don’t know who you’re grieving,

I don’t know what year the person exist in.

I just do know that at some point we have to remember that the paths might never line up again.

And that’s ok.

With love,

Meg
I probably shouldn’t write this.

August 12th, 2024

I probably shouldn’t be doing this.

I probably should save all these words for myself, but something inside me says even though they are bitter, ugly truths, sometimes we need those.

I probably shouldn’t have sat on my couch reading in the silence while the room around me turned dark.

I probably shouldn’t have made the decision to sit on my kitchen floor and stare at my laptop as if it’s holding a piece of me like a scratcher ticket with a truth about myself I’m not capable of bringing to the surface.

I probably shouldn’t have tears in my eyes from not having said anything.

Lately I feel like all the ghosts of my life are hanging around. All the words people have said to me, the actions that showed I was insignificant.

All the times I wasn’t chosen.

They’ve all been here.

And the only thing I’ve been able to do is shut them out. Plug my ears and run.

I found things and ways to shake them off, to numb whatever they are.

Almost a year ago I got diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy. My face stopped working, my body stopped working, and I was so undeniably lost.

The only thing that kept me moving were the people who were in my corner. The only thing that truly kept me going forward was their belief and love for me.

Since August 20^th I’ve been dealing with this thing, this inability to feel normal that has drug up all the ghosts that live in my past.

When I was really young I wrote a card to my Grandma Reeve, my Kansas Grandma. The one I never really saw. I remember in the card telling her that I wasn’t normal. I never felt normal as a kid. I was a loner, I was overweight, wore glasses and had a funny sounding voice that people couldn’t understand and made fun of.

She proceeding to write me back saying she didn’t want a normal grandchild and that she loved me how I was.

But, each time I got made fun of, each time someone responded to me trying to talk with a “wawawawa” like they couldn’t understand me. I would fade away again.

It was easier for me to be silent.

When I was in second grade I will never forget my teacher telling my mom that they needed to figure out my voice. That I would never get anywhere with it.

It was easier for me to be silent.

That’s been a voice that’s come back in full force this year.

It’s easier for me to be silent.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m stubborn and I’ve not been silent. I’ve yelled back in the face of the thing that tells me I should be silent and for the most part, to the best of my ability shown up.

But, tonight sitting on this kitchen floor, I’m realizing how much those ghosts have reappeared in more ways than I can even compute.

And for every time I’ve shown up, there is another where I’ve stepped away with the feeling that it’s easier for me to be silent.

When my world spun last year for 3 weeks I didn’t know if I’d ever find balance again, in all honesty, I don’t know if I have.

I don’t want to write these next words because I know they aren’t true. I do know that- but I think I need to face them on a screen: I don’t know if it isn’t easier if I’m silent.

I don’t know if I’m strong enough anymore to be stubborn enough to push the lies down.

This past year has been harder than I have even had the words to communicate. And even with all reassurance that people don’t notice what my face is doing: I do. I feel at a loss, off balance and unable to be who I am in ways I know how.

I spent the last 10 years building a confidence in myself that I hadn’t ever had before.

I started to know who I was, what I was about and I liked myself for it.

But then it was like the world played a uno reverse on me and suddenly I was going backwards.

And all I see are the ghosts of the things that used to haunt me.

So, tonight sitting on my kitchen floor I’m going to tell those ghosts that I see them.

They won’t have space to follow me anymore.

And even though I don’t fully believe those words: I have to say them anyway.

This is usually where I’d tag a note, something to say hey we’re here. We’re together.

But I think sometimes, we have to get rid of the ghosties by ourselves.

And that’s ok.

With love,

Meg
Finish the sentence

July 23rd, 2024

I have without a doubt been silencing myself.

In the last couple months I’ve started more blogs and more pieces of words than I care to admit.

I’ve absolutely written the things that I deem safe sans one collection of words back in June.

Ever since those words I’ve been afraid that anything I write about the dark things I feel would negate the words I wrote then, the things I know to be true. The light I know I am.

That me speaking of the things that have been hard would negate the things I know to be true.

I have had a lot of beautiful, sparkly moments this summer. Moments with friends where I belly laugh and sitting in the sun and enjoying every moment.

But, then there have been more moments than I can count that feel like depths I haven’t been to in awhile.

And that is really damn scary to say.

I’ve written in spaces that say I’ve moved past them but in reality the mornings I’ve been awake til 2 or 3 am and the days at work I’ve survived on 3-4 hours of sleep are more then I would care to admit.

When I was at camp and had spent an evening on the absolute verge of a panic attack and I admitted to it Susan one of our directors-she asked if I had a mantra, something to say that grounded me in the moments where I felt like I could keep my breath or my head out of the darkness.

I didn’t. But I came up with one.

I am here.

It’s a play off of the words of Hannah Brencher “be where your feet are”

My feet are here.

I am here.

Then there is this:

My word of the year this year is again.

And I’ve had to work really damn hard to not tack the word on the sentence: it’s 2009, again.

Because that’s honestly all that’s been in my brain. The recesses of my brain that hold dates and memories and pain just keep telling me that I must not be strong enough since I’m here, again.

I want you to know human being reading this that I know, in my absolute knower, that it’s not true.

I know I’m stronger, bolder, and so many things in between.

I know.

But, good god, I never want anyone to feel less than if they feel as if they’ve met the pages they’ve been in the book before.

Something a Nigerian med student told me in a small village on the border of Russia in Ukraine (it’s just a fun sentence I had to say) was that he was never going back to Nigeria. He wasn’t the same so he couldn’t go back, he was going forward to Nigeria.

I’ve been silencing myself because it feels like I’m going back.

I’ve been silencing myself because I’m so afraid that the strength I have will be diminished if I admit I’ve met some mountains that have to be climbed that just so happen to look foothills I’ve climbed before.

I’ve been silencing myself because I’m so afraid that people will think I’m a fraud that can’t just get over it.

I’ve been silencing myself because it feels like 2009 and I don’t want to live through that again.

But, when I silence myself I can’t get to the end of the sentence.

When I silence myself, you don’t have the space to get to the end of the sentence in your book,

The end of the sentence is this: it feels like 2009 again, but it’s not.

And if we don’t get to the “but” we can’t negate everything that came before it.

It feels like 2009 again, but I’m stronger.

It feels like 2009 again, but I’ve rebuilt and I will again.

It feels like 2009 again, but I am Meg in 2024.

I don’t know how you are silencing yourself.

I don’t know if you won’t let yourself get to the “but” that negates the thing that scares you that comes before it.

To get to the overcoming we have to get to the “but” in the sentence.

We have to change our language and our outlook.

I don’t know if you feel up for sharing the end of your sentence and if you do please drop it in the comments or shoot me a message.

Here’s mine (sorry for the language):

It feels like 2009 again but, for fucks sake I’m still here.

With love,

Meg
Buried strength

July 14th, 2024

I joked last night that I’m someone who is always going to circle back to the Labyrinth. It usually happens without me even noticing it as I write and then bam David Bowie has found his way into another one of my blogs.

And it seems lately all the words I’ve been writing are scarier than I like to deal with.

Today at church I desperately wanted to run. I felt myself wanting to not show up, to bow out and everything in between. I stayed knowing that normally my desire to run is actually the sign I should stay.

But, as I sat during worship and wrote I once again found myself replaying a scene from the labyrinth. When the main character Sarah at the end of the movie is trying to get her baby brother back finally from the Goblin King. She’s done all the tasks and she’s made it through the Labyrinth and now the Goblin king is toying with her and moving about and she keeps having to move her neck and change positions and try to keep finding him.

She can’t remember the final line of the story and I believe that he thinks he’s bested her.

But she takes a breath and realization fills her face and she says the final words of the story “you have no power over me”.

Normally that’s the place I get too but I realized today in church that I’m currently right before the moment of realization. I’m in a place where it feels like my mind is blank and I have no idea what the words that should come out of my mouth are.

I know that I know them but I can’t piece them together.

I’m a strong human. I’ve always been stronger than I give myself credit for. And today while walking to find a place to clear the cobwebs I had a little conversation with myself about strength.

Sarah in the Labyrinth didn’t realize what strength she had. She didn’t get that her whimsiness and her ability to see beyond what was, was actually strength. That those things and walking in who she was is what got her through the maze.

She was the only one who could have done that journey. And it wasn’t the bad things in her life that made her strong. It wasn’t the things that she went through that were her strength.

It was the things that she chose to keep and protect in spite of what was that were always her strength.

As I was walking here I was thinking about all the worship songs and sermons and what not I’ve heard in my life that strength can only be found in God. That in him my weakness becomes strength.

But what if all the things we thought “made us strong” were just the things that cover up where our real strength is. Where it actually lies.

It’s funny how there are lies and things that have been whispered in our brain for so long start to turn into our own voice.

Sarah was always told to grow up. To stop imagining. Her parents saw it as weakness, but instead it became what saved her. Her ability to dream and imagine.

The thing I hear in my own voice now, as much as I’ve tried to get it away from me is that I am a burden, too much and that I have to be an island.

It’s scary how quickly those things can flood my mind.

But, today pondering Sarah I wonder what strengths those are covering.

I pride myself in my ability to keep fucking going even when I’ve been absolutely inundated with grief and pain and health issues. Even when I can’t smile, I’ve kept moving.

And that’s what I’ve claimed as my strength.

But what if is covering up true strength?

Here’s the deal: there is a lot of evangelical statements that I’m 100% not ok with. But, I think that there are times where we forget we are all uniquely made and equipped; however you believe people came into existence- we are all unique. We all have strengths that have been in us since we were born- it’s just up to us to allow ourselves to find them.

I won’t mince words: my mental health has never bounced back since my mom passed. It was a pummeling of burnout and grief and now for almost a year dealing with this facial paralysis and unsteadiness. I’ve had some of my more scarier lows of my life in the last 5 months.

But, like Sarah, my strength isn’t what it seems.

My strength isn’t my ability to show up, or keep moving forward.

Those are all the reactions of things that have happened to me, that have been done to me, that I’ve had to deal with. I have made them strengths out of survival but they aren’t actually where my strength lies.

The things that have happened to us don’t make us who we are.

I don’t know right now if I’m ready to look at the goblin king and say “you have no power over me”. Right now, I don’t know if I believe it.

I do know this though: I will no longer give the darkness that has shadowed my life the credit for how strong I am. I’m going to choose to find the things that are actually my strengths, not the reactions to the dark things.

I was strong before them, not because of them.

Like I said a while back: when David killed Goliath, he didn’t prove it by carrying his head around.

He was the proof.

But he had the strength in him before he killed him, not just after.

The strength didn’t come from the overcoming. The overcoming came from the strength.

The strength was already there.

Right now, everything in my life feels like it’s covering the strength I need.

I don’t know how to distinguish between what I need to keep or what I don’t need to keep

I do know, it feels like I’m holding a key to a treasure box. Something that’s been covered for so long because I didn’t think it was there,

I thought I could only make diamonds from pressure- not that I contained them from the start.

So here is where I am this week, staring at the Goblin King as I await the words I need to find the strength that was there even before the journey.

I don’t know if you need the reminder that you already had the strength built in you like I did today.

But I do and you do.

With love,

Meg
Lux Aeterna: Camp 2k24

July 8th, 2024

To my beautiful, probably still heat exhausted Royal Family,

Somewhere between sitting on the floor of Redwood singing Lux Aeterna at 1am, leading another round of “Miss Meg says” and crying from laughter in the dark with Susan, Tyler, Priscilla, Vanessa and Beth I realized that there was no way I could have actually been prepared for camp this year.

And I think that’s why the only thing I could hear from God the weeks prior to camp was “just show up”.

All we could do was show up because I know for me, for a lot of us, we had so many things we had to choose to leave at the door. We had to choose to toss some things down the mountain and disconnect because that was the only way we would be able to move forward.

We had to choose to believe God was already there; ahead of us, behind us and walking in the midst of us.

I was a little overwhelmed leading communion on Monday night. I felt the weight of whatever was to come. As we waited to see the campers that might not make it, as we tried to get as prepared as we could.

And again I heard “just show up”.

We showed up in chapel and in the hot sun. We showed up at the pool and we ate so the kids would eat even though it was too hot to eat.

The deans and staff counselors and directors showed up with the amount of steps they took running along side kids. They showed up for the counselors by making sure they were finding ways to meet their own needs. (I think my annual Susan makes me cry by asking me how I was occurred on Friday).

You all showed up for me by doing one more round of miss meg says and encouraging your kids to listen. You also all showed up for me by not seeing a single bible in lost and found.

I think this week was a reminder that while we all have things and trials and stressors and ways we feel less than- we will all show up for the kids.

I say it every year: I feel as if, during the week of camp, I’m operating out of exactly who I’m meant to be. It’s a weird thing to explain, it’s just something I feel. I know that no matter how much energy I do or don’t think have- that at the end of the night (or in most cases- the start of the next day) when my head would hit the pillow I knew that I had given all the things in my hands and no matter how it felt when I woke up- my hands when be full again. Even if they were just full from the cold Celsius Jen handed me before 7am.

There was one moment at camp that I felt a breakdown coming so I found Susan and Tyler at a table during the birthday dinner and told them I needed to check out for a moment. Before I even stepped away from the table I had two or three boys want to tell me a bible verse; so I stopped and did that and then made my way to lay down and cry and fend off what felt like a panic attack before going to chapel.

That night was the LIT hayride and even though I’d spent most of chapel breathing through tears I got on the hayride with the boys and got to see my favorite thing that camp brings: kids being kids.

I got to see kids be kids because we adults decided to show up.

There’s a lot of reasons I push myself for a week at camp, a lot of reasons I show up with all that I am and all that I have.

This year there were 90ish kids and 100 adults that were the reasons.

I know that there is more for me to sit with about this week of camp. I know that God shifted a thing inside of me that I didn’t realize needed shifting.

So, on Tuesday, I’m going to find clean clothes in my house in the morning and probably go sit somewhere and write and rest and find some of my friends to hug. And I’m going to sit and ask God what He put into my hands this week. I’m going to take sometime to write some words to the humans who showed up with me this week.

But, right now, on the plane from one home in Irvine to another home in Washington I just have to say that I’m so grateful for another week serving His kids with you all.
I’m grateful for a week of moments that matter.
I’m grateful for karaoke golf cart rides and Pixar shorts and sarcastic nine year olds and side hugs from little boys who tell me I’m the nicest person they’ve ever met (sorry Lenore).
I’m grateful for the same little boys and their choice vocabulary and the way they helped me up the hill so I wouldn’t fall.
I’m grateful for the ability to see little girls be little girls and play in makeup and dress up. And also feel strong using a hammer and building projects.
I’m grateful for all the laughter and how the girls in upstairs redwood were very particular about the temperature of their showers.

And I’m so grateful that as He always does- that God met us there.

With all the love in the world and a promise to show up with all that I have,
Miss Meg
You’re not too

June 24th, 2024

I can’t make sense of my life right now and the only thing I can do to make sense of it is sit in front of of a blank screen and try desperately to untangle the mess of words in my brain.

I’ve inevitably gone back into a bit of an avoidance state. I know it. I’m always absolutely sure of my ability to just put my head down and try to not think of the things I don’t want to deal with.

Normally instead of putting all these brutally honest words on a page what I would do instead is simply try to empower myself out of the things I heard.

I try to man up.

But, there is this really creepy children’s movie from the late 80s that keeps coming to my brain. It’s called “Little Nemo: adventures in slumberland”. It’s one of those films most people have forgotten about or chosen to ignore. But there’s a feeling that I remember from the movie, when Nemo is falling off the bed. It’s a clear feeling I still feel when I even just think about the movie. It’s a feeling of unstoppable dread.

The feeling that feels like nothing will ever be the same again once you slip off the edge.

A feeling you can’t turn back from.

And in a way, that’s how I felt lately. If I choose to put out what I feel and how I’m back in this land of the other shoe dropping.

This is the part I don’t like. Having to admit the things I’m choosing to run from, or the conversations I’m avoiding for fear of once again being the one that breaks down.

And so now, I sit here, wondering if I’m going to talk about a phrase that was said to me constantly by a lot of people growing up.

It’s something I’ve touched on here and there but I’ve never come right out and addressed.

I’ve been told; since I was a very tiny human and into adulthood that I am too sensitive, that my feelings were too big, that I overreact. That it’s “not a big deal”.

I could write a list with memories and moments and words absolutely branded on my brain.

And I’ve spent a majority of my adult life teetering on the edge of being too much.

I’ve absolutely outlined a narrative that people will leave if I’m not strong enough. That the next time I break down will be the last time the people around me can stand.

Even facing the words on the screen- I know it’s ridiculous.

Something I know that I know is that the dark and ugly things of the world- whatever sentiments you describe as evil- that that thing has been trying to rob me of that thing I was told was too much my whole life.

I’m really damn good at teaching tiny humans. It’s something I won’t back down from. There are a lot of things that I feel deem myself a good teacher for but, I believe the thing that sets a part as a teacher is I don’t see a tiny human weakness or behavior as such- I see how it is a strength. How it can be used and how we just need to change the perspective.

I’m trying to change my perspective on my emotions. I’m trying to find ways to remember that people aren’t going to run and when they have; they aren’t my people.

I’ve tried really hard since I’ve started writing and sharing it to not let the fear of being too much overcome me.

While, some moments are moments of protecting myself and who I am, others are solely the fear of the mess I feel inside or in my room will suddenly be too much.

But, I’ve spent a lot of years teaching tiny humans about emotions and that their emotions are valid.

And today, sitting on this crowded sunny patio, I wanted to stare at little Meghan and remind her: she’s not too sensitive.

That her sensitivity and the voice she’s too afraid to use are powerful.

And that tonight, she should sleep.

With love,

Meg
Just show up

June 16th, 2024

It’s almost my most favorite week of the year: Royal family kids camp.

So, of course there are about at least five new stressors that popped upon the last week. There is a hundred things I need to do in the next 12 days before I fly on a plane to California.

There’s curriculum to keep editing, lines to memorize, supplies to have sent to Irvine, packing list to make, super soakers to find. All the things.

And then there is me: not feeling holy enough.

I know that sounds like a weird sentence, but it’s absolutely the only word that comes to my brain.

At camp I get to one of my favorite things and that is simply this: remind kids again and again and again that they are loved. I teach bible stories and pass out prizes for memorizing bible verses.

But really what I’m doing is just reminding them each and every moment that they were born to be loved.

That there are people that love them and will show up for them, that pray for them and constantly think of them.

The weeks leading up to camp the last few years have been hard. I’ve lived life emotionally drained and have been trudging up hills and through muck. So, I find myself getting to the weeks before camp and staring at Bible curriculum and verses and thinking I am not at all in the heart space to the one up at front.

Camp is a tiring week. It’s sun-up to sun-down, walking up and down hills, engaging with kids and adults, getting in the pool, making crafts, trying my best to avoid woodworking but always seeing a kid who needs help and doing it anyway.

It’s a week where I feel like I’m utilizing all that I am and all I have to give and leaving up on the mountain.

But, in the midst of all of my doubts and all the ways I just feel incapable and stressed and everything in between I’m just hearing these simple words:

Just show up.

My word for the year is again. It’s not just a word but a fill in the blank that has found a way to maneuver into most aspects of my life.

So amended: just show up again.

Showing up to camp is a lot. It’s carrying the year prior on your back, it’s the ways you’ve changed and grown and been stretched. It’s carrying the things you’ve lost along the way and hoping you have enough to keep picking things up.

We all come to camp with different stories, just like the kids we spend the week. We come with different reasons why, with different pains, different things we bring to the table.

And we can prepare, we can make lists, we can do everything we can.

But, at the end of the day all we are asked to do is simple just show up again.

Show up for the kids.

Show up for each other.

Show up for ourselves.

That’s what I’m going to work on remember over the next 12 days amidst all the things. I just need to get on a plane and show up.

To my Royal Family, I can’t wait to see you so soon and hug you all.

I cannot wait til we can show up together again.

With love,

Meg

If you’d like to help us show up for the kids, you can head to our donate link to help send a kid to camp!

https://www.forthechildrensantaana.org/donate
An anchor change

June 10th, 2024

I have a few defining moments in my relationship with God that I seem to circle back to as an anchor for a season, or an emotion or a theme that seems to continually wind its way around me. And the one that’s come back into my life in recent months that I finally feel out of to talk about is simply the constant image of the nightlight in my life.

I went through the probably the absolute darkest time of my life in 2008-2009. I was on meds, both of my parents had health issues, I had just gotten out of a classroom environment that was not good for me and I was feeling so much more than I was capable of dealing with.

I was thankfully in therapy and trying to do as much as I could.

But, the darkness and the things around me felt like too much.

It was a Sunday morning. It’s one of the images that stay in my brain despite my desire to not remember it so clearly. I was looking at myself in my bathroom mirror and I stared hard at myself and just thought the words “maybe it would just be better if I wasn’t here anymore”.

And then I closed my eyes.

When I closed my eyes I saw myself standing in an incredibly dark room and in the corner of the room I saw it. It was a dim, dim nightlight. It was down at the corner of the wall, where the light socket was. One of those rectangular ones that you get at the dollar store with a yellow light and a flimsy cover.

I will never forget that picture in my brain and how for all of my life since then when I’ve found myself in places of darkness I’ve come back to it. I’ve come back to the reminder that the darkness could not completely snuff out the light.

To be completely and utterly honest in ways I don’t love to be; I needed this image a few months ago. I was trudging. And one night I was in the shower and I sat down and I sobbed and sobbed and let the water engulf me and had the thought crossed my mind about just staying in the water. (Don’t worry mom, I’m ok).

And I sat in my shower sobbing I saw that light again and I got up and I shook it off and I kept (pardon my French) fucking going.

Because, at the end of the day, that’s what I was going to do. I was going to get up no matter what and keep going.

That brings me to today.

I didn’t go to church yesterday because cramps and no sleep but, I listened to church at work this morning to help get me out of a Monday mood.

When we got to the activation at the end, the thing I heard God say while I scooped pasta was “you’re still light”.

In all honesty, I just thought of that nightlight picture and really just believed his light was still there. That the darkness couldn’t drown it out.

That MY darkness couldn’t drown it out.

I knew though, that there was something there, something I needed to untangle.

Something that needed to become undone.

I didn’t realize that the thing the needed to be undone was a narrative I’ve kept close for 15 years.

The narrative being that the nightlight was just God.

The thing that was stronger than the darkness around it. The thing that has still been lit in the rooms that feel devoid of light wasn’t just God.

It was me.

Because no matter how dark my world has felt, no matter how much I wanted to just stop moving;

I’m still light.

Last year when I went through my identity work with my pastor and my people and kind of met myself where I didn’t know I needed too, the picture I saw was one of a home with a candle in the window.

A small, soft light that was always on, welcoming those that need it in.

No matter what I’ve believed about myself the light will always shine through.

That feels more important than I even know how to articulate.

I’ve always been afraid of the things that feel dark in my life. That the darkness is something that can engulf me, that it can dampen the light that I believed was outside of me- not a light that I brought myself. That the darkness was me.

We all bring something to the table. We all have something inside of us that the humans around us need.

And I hope that for all my days the light I am shines on what you bring.

And that I never forget that my ability to keep the darkness at bay.

A narrative in my life changed today over wontons and bubbly and people watching.

Here’s a reminder that no matter how long you’ve held onto something you always have the ability to realize that it’s not what you think it is.

With love,

Meg
A note about 39

June 4th, 2024

I deleted about 300 words that I wrote yesterday because I knew in my knower that I wasn’t actually typing what was true.

Well, it was true but it wasn’t it. It wasn’t the thing that I needed to be saying for myself at the beginning of this new year.

I didn’t need to start with all the ways in which I’ve always felt less than.

I didn’t need to start “used to be”.

Years ago a mentor was asking me questions about journaling and I stated that I don’t journal when I don’t want to face the thing that I already know.

I absolutely know what’s at the end of this; but I absolutely don’t want to see it in writing.

I’ve always been…scratch that.

I’m currently working on letting go of the constant fear that I’m too much.

And it’s really hard.

I’ve spent a very long time checking over my shoulder, backspacing over words, regretting input I’ve given, questioning my abilities and wondering if I’m allowed space in the places I inhabit.

Now, there’s a lot of reasons and a lot of situations and a lot of times where those things have been proved correct in my head.

But, (it should be noted how long I’m waiting to type the next words) today, at one of my favorite little bars, I’m choosing to say that those narratives and those people and those situations no longer have the ability to take my voice, my abilities or inhabit the spaces I should be in.

And if you ever want to know those things, or people or stories, I can share, but it won’t be from anything but a place of storytelling not situations that hold me back.

Because I’m not going to tiptoe around the things that make me who I am, that I’m good at.

I think it’s time I don’t shrink back anymore.

It’s time to unravel and undo the things that have caused me to keep a distance.

Today, I decide, to no longer be hesitant in being the first person to believe in myself.

I wonder what that will change?

With love,

Meg
38: year of…

May 27th, 2024

I’ve never been anxious to write about a year before but there is something that is just below the surface right now that I can’t really put my finger on.

38 has been wild.

38 started out pretty hard. I cried myself to sleep on my birthday and spent the weekend after my birthday feeling really alone, emotionally hungover and feeling a little bit more without than I knew/know how to describe.

I set into my summer with intentions to set some boundaries, to rest and to do things that felt like me.

And then my best friend and I ended up on a Tito’s party bus.

It was one of those nights that deservedly could have ended up like the movie the Hangover. We got on a party bus, not knowing where it was going, where we might end up or who any of the people were

Thankfully (obviously) we’re both still alive and have an epic story that we don’t know if we can top (or should top).

And that (this is maybe a little dramatic) was my last nights of being 38 that felt normal.

That Sunday I woke up with a half paralyzed face and it then spurred 4 weeks of two ER visits, having such intense vertigo I couldn’t move my head or walk to my bathroom without puking, I couldn’t leave my room or walk down my stairs or eat anything.

I physically haven’t felt normal since. Though it’s gotten immensely better I can’t smile without my left eye crinkling, my ear is still a bit ringy, I’m consistently 5% off balance, eating is hard, I spill on myself constantly and I can’t whistle.

And blanketed in all of this, is grief. And doing all of it without my mom even on the other side of the phone.

Those are all the things I’m holding in one hand.

In the other hand is the fact that I just came to a realization that I think I’ve never felt more like a badass in my life.

Since August 20th I auditioned for and was in a musical again, I was in charge of a crew of munchkins backstage, I for the most part never stopped doing announcements at church even though I kind of hated talking I front of people, I spoke at church on Christmas Eve, I stage managed and called a show for three weekends. I still sang karaoke and still was in pictures even thought I don’t like looking at myself.

I did my absolute best to continue to show up for myself even though it’s been really, really hard to look at myself in the mirror.

I’m not saying I did it all or I didn’t have a lot of nights of crying in the dark of my room. I’m not saying that I didn’t want to give up and stop showing up multiple times.

And I’m not saying there weren’t stretches of time where I didn’t show up with my whole self.

I’m very quick to diminish a hard thing I’ve done or am doing because so many people do harder things everyday.

People walk around with life threatening illnesses and autoimmune diseases and so many things in between and I just have a face that won’t work and eyes that water constantly and a body that won’t stay steady.

But, I have to come to the realization and the reminder that in my year of 38 I showed up in ways I didn’t want too.

I spent a lot of my life not wanting to talk because my voice sounded funny. I spent a lot of my life hiding because I was overweight and was made fun of.

I spent a lot of it thinking I was a burden and trying to just disappear.

But, even in spite of all the history my brain tells me and of my desire to not look in a mirror, I knew in 38 I was going to show up in spite of.

I was going to speak because I had things to say.

I was going to be in a musical because we all deserved that redemption.

I was going to encourage kiddos and teens in a musical because they needed adults in their corner.

And I was going to show up because, in spite of what I may believe, things are better when I show up.

Whenever I sit down to write these little letters to a past year of life I never actually know what will happen. I don’t know what words will come out.

But, I guess for today; the words that came out are simply this.

Dear 38,

I’m glad I didn’t let you show me up.

Thanks for reminding me I’m a badass.

With love,

Meg

PS.

Let’s just stay calm this week k? (Unless it’s like really, really good)