Category: Honest

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.
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive

July 9th, 2017

I’ve been in Bellingham for two years this weekend.

That’s insane. I kind of can’t even fathom it. That I’ve been here for two years with all the ups and downs and tantrums (by myself and by toddlers). I’ve learned more here then I can articulate.

The main thing being, I am very, very glad I have decided to the best of my ability to not just “get through” this season.

It was something I noticed being the two year old room. The two year olds were rough. I would find myself counting down the moments til nap and then the moments til three pm.

Trying to force yourself through moments, trying to just get through days is not a way to live.

There was a time in my life that I didn’t want to sleep at night because I didn’t want the sun to come up. I was working in a pretty hostile classroom and I was in an incredibly deep dark well of depression. I would stay up ‘til one or two in the morning just to have more hours in the day to myself.

If I slept then I would have to do all the things again.

I remember hitting my breaking point, knowing that for myself and for those around me I could no longer just “fake it ‘til I make it”. Something had to give. I couldn’t just put my head down and try to get through.

It wasn’t working.

So, I made changes, I moved out the classroom, I started therapy, I went on antidepressants.

I tried to find joy again and I worked really hard to do so.

There are times, chunks of the last two years, when I know in my knower that I was sitting in a pit of depression. That I didn’t want to go to sleep at night because then the day would come again.

And I would have to do all the things.

I’m thankful for the people around me who remind me to be present and for the tiny humans who demand it.

I don’t know what this third year in Bellingham holds and I don’t know how many years will follow it; but I’m going to choose, still, to the best of my ability to be present. I’m going to choose to try not to live of faking it ‘til I make it.

I have parts of my life that I can say without out a doubt that I’m trying to get through. I’m pretty sure most of us would be lying if we said we weren’t trying to get through something.

A season in a city, a season of singleness, a season before marriage, a season of a job.

Days, weeks, months that we are so desperately trying to get past, to get to the next season.

But why?

Why do we deem these moments less important than the ones we are trying to get through? Who are we to decide what moments we can learn from?

If I allow myself, I can learn from everyday. I can learn from the tantrums and the laughter and moments when I feel less than myself.

But the instance I put my mind in forward, the instance I decide that minute I want ahead of me is less important than the minute I am in, is the instant I decide that my present doesn’t matter

During one of my object lessons I did at camp a couple weeks ago I talked about how there is a plan and a purpose for our lives. There are big, awesome things ahead.

That’s hard to stomach sometimes.

More, is hard to stomach.

But, this minute you are in right now? The one in which you’ve decided to read this collection of words?

This is a part of your more.

And so is the next and the next.

Let’s start with tomorrow. Let’s start with not getting through tomorrow, but for living every moment of it.

Let’s create joy and growth and hope and light.

So, when we get to the next day and the day after that, we won’t have moments lost in the abyss, but days we can build upon.

Let’s do the damn thing each and every day.

And when we need to- take a deep breath to our toes, and dive back in.
My dear 31, you were kind of a bitch.

May 30th, 2017

The kind of lovely thing about a basically mid year birthday is that you can stop and reflect about what has happened since the calendar year changed as well as what has gone on since your age changed last.
Seven out of the twelve months of this year were lived in 2016.

And we all know what kind of year 2016 was.

I’ve been trying my best to separate 31 from 2016. I’ve been trying to be glass half full, or at least glass refillable.

But what I’ve realized is that 31 was like an avocado that is starting to go bad. You have to work for the good parts, because man, those parts are ripe and perfect and it’s a crime to throw away edible avocado. So, you slice and spoon out and flick the black bruised parts into the trash.

And some of them end up in your guacamole, or in your nachos, or spread on your toast (SO WHAT I’M BASIC).

It might make your mouth a little puckered, but you wouldn’t have even had the chance to have any of it if you’d chosen to chuck the whole thing.

There have been A LOT of times over 31 that I wanted to chuck the whole thing. I wanted to chuck bellingham, my job, any chance of dreams. I wanted to chuck my voice, my abilities, my hope because I was running into a lot of bruised parts. Some days it felt like too many.

Some days, I felt like the bruised part in other people’s life.
I think if I had to take anything away from the last year of my life, it is this: “but I didn’t.”

But I didn’t run.

But I didn’t stay silent (most of the time).

But I didn’t stop making friends.

But I didn’t stop celebrating.

But I didn’t stop showing up.

But I didn’t stop loving.

But I didn’t stop seeing the best in people.

But I didn’t let my tears stop falling.

But I didn’t stop baking.

And even though this is the hardest one: But I didn’t stop hoping.

31 you were beautiful.

You had a lot of tears, some weddings, sweet baby Peyton, some surprises, a lot more two year olds then I ever imagined I’d ever interact with in my life, you had board games and nights out and nights in. You brought new humans into my life, kept so many old, you had celebration and laughter. You had beer, margaritas and let’s be real: tequila.

31, as with every other year in my life, I do appreciate you. I appreciate the fight you’ve given me. I appreciate the tears and the days the tears never came. I appreciate the belly laughter, I appreciate that you were my second year in Bellingham. You were the year I established more and floundered less.

I appreciate you, but, if you would be so kind:

Please bring on 32.

Here’s to 32.

To more hope.

To more joy.

To more life.

To more beautiful surprises.

(And to less two year olds- 32 is more of a “three year old” kind of year)

And here’s to the people of my 31 (obviously not all pictures. I only get nine guys!)

I freaking love you people.

I know it’s (almost) my birthday, but it’s you I want to celebrate.

Thank you for being hope, light, joy, laughter, and (buying me) tequila, to me.

Thank you all for being my people. Each and everyone of you, close as the next room and far as across an ocean, I love you all.
a letter to those that lack

May 21st, 2017

This is written to those occupying the same stage of life I am in, but if you are a human who has ever found themselves identifying what they lack over what they have have, my Sunday morning thoughts might help your brain too.

Dear single woman,I get you.
No, really I do.

See, I’m not writing from the other side of the thing, or writing from a different phase in life. You won’t click on my bio and see I’m now a married woman with two kids and a house in the suburbs or find an Instagram with me sporting a diamond. I’m in what some would call “the waiting” or “the before”

(I just call it life.)

I am not going to tell you to “enjoy this time” because you should enjoy everything. I am not going to tell you that you aren’t ready, because you are the only human who knows that.

I am going to tell you that I know. I know that you have eyes and a heart and a mind. You see, you feel and you think.

And those don’t always connect. You logically know you are good, solid. You feel about 95% whole. But your eyes always lead you astray. The land on the differences, the missing pieces. Your eyes don’t know how to outline what you have, they only know how to outline what “should” be there.

I know you have days that are harder then others.

And those hard days make you feel a lot of things. Filled with shame because you feel like “that girl”, upset at yourself because you don’t want to feel that way, you want to be whole and independent. It might make you feel more determined to be whole and independent.

I want you to know that I truly believe in the bottom of your knower that you know that you are good. That you aren’t less of a person because you don’t have something you want.

I see you.

I see into your insides. I see that you are reminded of what you lack, you are reminded of the step in life you have yet to take.

And I’m writing this because I want you to know aren’t alone.

You are in a world, daily, of people who feel so similar to you.

That couple you see in the coffee shop every Saturday wants kids.

The dad who wants to coach the little league team but can’t leave work early.

That family of five just wants to buy a house in the same neighborhood as their friends.

And you might of just thought the same thing I did even as I typed those words: “but at least…”

At least they have each other.

At least he has the job.

As least they have the family.

We live in an “at least” world and sometimes being a single woman feels very bottom of that food chain.

But, IF we don’t want people to belittle us with “at leasts” we should work on the same.

If we want to choose to see what people have, we need to decide to do that for ourselves.

Let’s stop living in lack.

Let’s stop living in lack WITH the knowledge though, that some days are harder than others.

I am not great at focusing on what I have.

I never thought I struggled with comparison.

I was wrong.

So, for me, it’s going to be a mind overhaul. I’m not talking about making lists or writing in a gratitude journal, though if that is how it works best for you, go for it. I’m going to attempt to, whenever I see something I lack in the picture of what someone else has, I am going to remind myself that for everything I see they have, I have something too. I’m going to remind myself that we are different humans, with different journeys and lives.

I repeat again: I’m going to try.

And I know that doesn’t and won’t always happen.

So now, at the precipice of a new week, I raise my can of sparkly wine;

I raise it to the couple who wants kids,

To the dad who wants to coach the team,

To the family who wants the house,

And to you, my single friend.

I raise my wine to you all. We forget so often in the midst of comparison and haves and have-nots, in the midst of constantly feeling less than or lacking, that we are all in this together.
Our commonalities are far greater than the things that separate us.

Let’s be kind to our minds this week.

Let’s see what happens.

Sincerely,

Meg
I am not a mother

May 13th, 2017

I have met a lot of moms in my life.

That’s kind of a side effect of working with tiny humans; you meet their moms.

I’ve made friends with, been mentored by, looked up to, laughed with, cried to, been cried on, by a large variety of mothers. My friends have become mothers before my own eyes. I’ve met moms in many different countries, across language and cultural barriers.

I, myself, am not a mother.

I process a lot in this blog. I process my thoughts through writing. I “think out loud” in order to lay the pieces out. I don’t say things to garner sympathy or attention. I say things to tell it like it is. I say things so, in case you feel the same way, you don’t feel so alone.

I am not a mother.
And I don’t know if I need to be one.

This isn’t saying that I don’t want to be a mother. Or that I don’t have moments of baby fever, because let me tell you my Facebook feed is blowing up with pregnancy announcements. And my most favorite place at the Y is in the baby room snuggling the babies.

But, I don’t think my world is going to crash down if I don’t get married or if my husband, whoever he may be, and I decide that we don’t want to have kids.

I also don’t think it will make me less of a woman, or that I would be selling myself short, or the world short if I didn’t “put a piece of myself into it”.

Women who become moms (through any means) are pretty freakin bad ass. From the women in a village in Africa who have a baby on their back and a basket on their head, to the single thirty something who is a foster mom, to the working moms whose tiny humans I’ve taught and taken care of during the day, to the single moms who do all the things, to the moms who stay at home and take care of their kiddos and support each other. BA every one of them.

And I know a lot of grown ass women who aren’t mothers who are also BA. Running businesses, managing companies, making a life from being immensely creative. Some of them may want kids and some don’t.

And that’s ok.

Sometimes it is hard, especially in a Christian culture, to understand a woman not wanting kids. Or being ok with not having them. Or sympathizing and not being condescending to the one who does and is unable too.

I have mom role models. I have women I want to be when I “grow up” (as always, Rachel B I’m looking at you). I take parenting nuggets here and there. If I do have kids, I won’t be scared of a singular two year old because for the past year I’ve averaged 12 on the daily. I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve.

And if I never use them on my own kids that’s ok.

I guess, what it really comes down to is this: it’s completely 100% ok not to want to have kids. It’s ok to not want to or need to be a mom. It is not ok to shame those who have those opinions or tell them “they just need to find the right guy” (and yes that has been said to me).

It comes down to being who you are.

And this is who I am.

So, to all of you mothers on Mother’s Day and let’s face it, every day.

You guys are amazing.

While, yes, I do take care of tiny humans, change diapers and put to sleep (think: MMA cage fighting a crocodile), I feed and teach and snuggle and love; I sleep in a bed that doesn’t get disturbed by the tiptoe of tiny feet. I don’t get yelled at that the toast is cut wrong WHILE also trying to get ready for work. (I still get yelled at for the toast). I don’t get awakened by screams, or have to watch shots at the doctor.

You do that.

So, if I don’t ever become a mom; if I spend the rest of my life, in some capacity, taking care of tiny humans, or caring for my friend’s tiny humans, I want you, sweet mom friend of mine, to know this simple four word sentence from me to you:

I got your back.
but I’ve always been fat.

April 22nd, 2017

Before you start reading this I need you to know three things:

I’m a reasonably happy with myself human being; I know who I am, what I’m made of and what I’m about.

I know HOW to lose weight, I’ve done it before.

I know my beauty.

I don’t know at what point in my life I started gaining weight. I remember being overweight in elementary school. I remember it being hard to run at softball practice. I remember shopping in the women’s section and not being able to order from all those catalogs that all the cool kids ordered from. I remember being different.

A lot of things worked against me most of my life (or so it felt). I tried multiple time to lose weight. I had gym memberships in high school and tae-bo VHS’s and I ordered diet pills online and hid them.

My second semester of my junior year of college and through the summer before my senior year I lost 60 pounds. I ate very little and exercised a lot. And then music camp before my senior year I was incredibly overwhelmed. I was in the limelight already as a president of one of the music ensembles. And then I felt like all of these people who had known me for four years were finally able to see me.

Holy hell that was too much.

No one tells you how scary it is to lose weight.

No one tells you that losing weight doesn’t make you happy.

ESPECIALLY when you realize you don’t actually know who you are.

“Thinner” days in my senior year of college.

Since college I’ve gained back and lost again and gained back and lost 50-70 pounds.

I’ve been told so many different things. I’ve been fat shamed and body shamed. I’ve been shamed for losing weight and shamed for gaining it back. The amount of times and the amount of people who have uttered the words “well let’s not gain it back this time” to me is more then I would like to admit.

I want you to know that being fat and losing weight isn’t about the physical aspect of it for me. It’s about the mental game.

When you lose weight people notice. They point it out.

You can’t hide.

I’ve learned over the last four years or so that I’m not meant to hide, I’m meant to be known and seen and lead and use my voice.

But, I’ve always been fat.

There might be people who are capable of losing weight and keeping it off after realizing they hate their body. There might be people who find themselves through the process.

But me? I’ve always been fat. I’ve hid behind it, used it as a shield, fended off relationships with it, treated it as part of my identity. It’s not that anyone has outright called me the fat friend, but I’ve stepped into that role, never shopping in the same section as my friends, calling things beautiful that I couldn’t fit over one leg, going shopping by myself at the mall in the stores I can fit in.

But, I’ve always been fat. And I’ve always learned to love myself. I’ve developed a personal style. I’ve felt beautiful. I know who I am.

Here’s the thing: I know how to treat my body. But, for so long I’ve used this vessel that my identity is in as a wall. It’s easy to get out of things in life, it’s “easier”to be who you are when part of you is hiding.

I don’t know what I am actually going to feel when I lose weight. I don’t know what knowing who I am, and what I am about is going to change. I don’t know what having a firm foundation is going to do.

But, I am going to try.

I’m not going to document anything or post pictures of food. For me it’s not a battle of healthy choices and working out.

It’s a battle to believe it’s actually not an always in my life.

And it’s not an always in your life either.
Just fix your leggings

April 9th, 2017

I was putting on my leggings this morning and I thought of my tiny humans. Every weekday at about 11AM you can normally find me helping two year olds go potty and put on pull-ups and put their pants back on.

And let me tell you, hell hath no fury like a tiny human whose pants are too tight, bunched or stuck on their foot.

I rarely can fix the problem before the whines and squeaks begin.

My tiny humans quickly tell me when they aren’t happy, uncomfortable or any form of not feeling perfectly at peace in their own skin. Their blankets aren’t right, they have the wrong cup, their food is touching. They let me know when they are hungry or tired.

They refuse to live like that. Ever.

Not having it.

At some point, obviously, that changes.

At some point we begin to just be ok with things that cause us discomfort, or pain, or take our peace of mind away. At some point we are entrenched in the knowledge that “life isn’t fair” and “you just have to live with it”.

At some point we just live with things being off or bunched or too tight.

Why?

Why do we, as human beings, decide that we aren’t worth living our life to the fullest, we decide we aren’t worth rest, or lovely things.

We decide that someone else’s happiness is more important then ours.

Now, I am not saying that we have to be happy all the time, or comfortable, or that we have to satisfy every need and desire we have right at the exact moment.

I am saying, is that living at a two for the sake of living at a two is dumb.

I’ve been pondering this idea lately. The idea that we as humans choose to suffer for the sake of suffering.

I feel like christians have cornered this market. Suffering for the sake of suffering. I have done it, I have been in a place of not accepting something, or not choosing something because I thought I wasn’t supposed too.

But, what I have learn in my life thus far, is that are already times when life will feel crappy, hard and all the things without me choosing it. We don’t need to create more situations like that.

I learn from my tiny humans a lot. And today, when putting on my leggings, I was reminded that I don’t need to choose to be uncomfortable, I don’t need to live in my unhappiness.

I don’t need to make life hard for the sake of it being hard.

Now, I don’t need to throw a tantrum when my leggings catch on my foot, or when I feel lonely, or if something doesn’t go my way.

But, if I have the ability to fix it- why shouldn’t I?

There are a lot of big world things we are unable to fix. There are a lot of circumstances that we aren’t meant to change . We can’t always leave the job, or move out of the city, or magically be in a relationship.

But, we can fix our leggings or go on a run, we can hang out with friends or we can light a candle and take a deep breath.

We can find the things we need to find balance and joy and peace.

We are allowed to choose goodness.

We don’t need to scream about it like my tiny humans but we can take deep breath and figure it out.