Tag: space

Now that you’ve all seen the Labyrinth

June 8th, 2025

Right now my life feels a bit like that scene in the labyrinth where she ends up in the piles and piles of trash where the woman is trying to make her be burdened down by her past.

This little trash lady is trying to cover Sarah’s back in the past and have her carry it around. She’s using all the things of the past to make her feel weighted down.

She’s using all the things of her past to try to make her forget she’s supposed to be moving forward.

She’s trying to remind her of all the things that once were. All the things that were soft and easy to distract her from the hard thing she needs to be doing.

I don’t think the little trash lady thinks she’s wrong in what she’s doing.

I think in fact, she believes she’s trying to protect Sarah. I think she is trying to give Sarah a chance to not have to do the hard thing.

But that’s not what Sarah needs.

Sarah needs to be reminded who she is.

Because when we’re going through the fire we don’t need to be reminded of the times there were no flames; we need to be reminded of the times the flames burned us but we kept fucking going.

We don’t need to be reminded of the quieter soft times; we need to be reminded of the times it got loud and we didn’t cover our ears.

We don’t need to be reminded of who we used to be; we need to be reminded of who we are right now.

Right now there’s a lot of pain in my life and honestly, I’d much rather cover myself with all the soft and kind and past experiences where it was all easier.

It feels like it would be easier to sit in a room and have a little trash lady laden my back with all the things that feel like they were from simpler times and have them weigh me down so I’m unmoving and just thinking of times where there weren’t any flames.

But if you don’t keep moving you can’t keep being.

If you allow yourself to sit amidst the things that feel easy while the fire sits outside the door you’re still probably going to get burned.

I’ve been leaning away from the pain lately. More than I would normal do. I’ve been unmoving, unfeeling, incapable of existing.

Because I say with tears in my eyes- it’s all been a lot harder than I’ve been able to communicate.

The thing about pain though- is eventually you have to move, and it’s still there.

So, much like Sarah in the Labyrinth I need to shake off the things from my back, I need to keep moving forward, even though it feels like I don’t know how to get to where I’m supposed to be going.

And even though moving forward is scary and painful, even though it reminds you of what you’ve lost along the way, what you’re still battling, what is still unknown, you can never get to the center of the Labyrinth if you don’t keep going.

So, let’s shake off what used to be, let’s remember that we have before and we will again and let’s find ourselves where we might have stopped so we can move forward again.

Let’s shake it off.

With love,

Meg
What if they didn’t tell us to go?

March 9th, 2025

What would we have done if they would have never told us we were world changers?

One of my people, my soul sisters, Joanna sent me some midnight thoughts after a particular rough in my head Friday.

And intertwined in the beautiful words and truths and sentences I had to agree with, with gritted teeth, was the stark reminder that we both grew up in a generation of Christianity and youth group and camp themes that told us over and over again that we were going to change the world.

That it was our job to go out and be his hands.

To go where He sent us.

That we were the generation that was going to go into all the world.

And I didn’t realize until I stopped and pondered Joanna’s words how much that heavy statement affected me.

How much I carry the fact that I’m supposed to change things, that I’m supposed to make a difference with each day.

How I feel like I fail every day I don’t feel like I’ve made a difference.

To quote my beautiful friend in her words to me:

“It’s not pressure. It’s the realization that being born for such a time as this is not a mandate to live up to.”

As a millennial growing up in a high school youth group, who went to a Christian university, who has worked at a lot of churches, who did a year long mission among other missions trips, the phrase “born for such a time as this” has always felt like a challenge, something I need to meet up with.

Something telling me I was strong enough to be stronger.

Not something saying I had the things I needed right then, right where I am, as I was.

I remember youth conferences and Mexicali themes and university chapels and it was always the altar call of “who will go?”

They told us to go and when we weren’t able to and when we didn’t know how to translate it into our normal lives, something happened.

We lacked the ability to feel enough.

I’m one of the “lucky” ones.

I went.

I’ve been 14 countries on mission trips. I’ve preached in prisons, taught Bible stories in the middle of a village in Mozambique.

I’ve prayer walked in Thailand and Swaziland and Peru.

I’ve taught English in Cambodia and China and Malaysia (because English IS easy- iykyk)

I’ve cooked and cared for widows and orphans.

I’ve been proposed marriage in at least 4 countries and kicked out of public transport when I said no.

I’ve went.

But now I stay.

I think that’s part of the reason I always feel like running would help.

Like going somewhere I’m unknown, unneeded and uninvolved would help.

Because they told us to go.

They told us to change the world.

They never told us to stay.

So, now what?

How do we, a generation who has disentangled from a faith that told us to go, to change the world, to move- how do we stay?

And what if the world we were always meant to change was our own?

In the smallest semblance of being.

What if we were meant to change the world by staying but they just never got to that part?

What if we were meant to move in the same space.

What if the going was the daily thing we do.

What if it didn’t have to be a big deal.

What if they never told us to go change the world?

What would we have done?

Well.

I guess, as much as I don’t want to say this, we should do the opposite:

So, let’s stay.

With love,

Meg
Again and again part 2

November 18th, 2024

I’m really done with my word of the year.

Usually that isn’t the case. I might not like the word, but I see the good things that come from it and I can understand.

Not this year.

On Sunday, I was sitting in church and I was like “ok god, let’s be done. Let’s wrap this one up like a bow.”

And he said “nah, I’m good.”

Because, again, I have to keep going.

And no matter what that’s going to be the case. I’m always going to keep meeting places I’ve been before.

Again and again.

I thought this year would have more answers than it has. I thought maybe it would hold something.

And really, it has held a lot.

It’s still held more than I can even comprehend I know.

Usually, at this point in the year I feel like we’re starting to coast to the finish line.

Like I have a grasp and I start to understand what the baton in the relay race is going to look like.

But, right now, I can’t even see the baton. I don’t know what it looks like, I don’t know if I’m even still moving towards the finish line.

It kind of feels like I’m playing Mario kart with the Steiners and I’m just choosing to go off course because it’s easier.

This year has honestly made me feel like I don’t know who I am at all.

And has made me feel like I know exactly who I am at the same time.

Because I knew this year, each thing I met, I had met before. I knew that each moment where I felt like I was walking through fire, I had walked through it before.

I had done it before so I can do it again.

And because of all of that; I stopped seeing that as a threat.

When I think about the labyrinth and how Sarah, the main character, is utilizing the book she has that is the story of the labyrinth to get through she must feel as if she’s been there before. She knew the book so well that it must have felt a bit like she had been there before.

And there were places in the maze she went to again and again.

She was caught in the place of either moving forward and or allowing herself to “rest” in a place that at one point in the journey been safe.

But the journey moved her forward.

The journey has kept moving me forward.

The things I’ve had to unearth even in just the last stretch of time that have been a reminder to me that my worth is not based on what I do.

That I’m not the glue, even when it feels like if I allow myself to let go control it will all crumble.

It causes me to sit on a street corner in Brasov, Romania across from Betsy Garmon as she leans in to tell me, remind me, implore me that I don’t have to be the glue.

It’s almost as if, I’m still making my way toward the Goblin King.

I haven’t had the chance to tell him he has no power over me.

I haven’t saved the baby.

I just dreamed I did.

So here I am, again.

Stronger.

More capable.

But still moving the fuck forward.

We have less than 6 weeks left.

I think I’m ready for this maze to be over.

Let’s save the baby.

With love,

Meg
For f*ck’s sake; let’s try hope. Again.

November 10th, 2024

I am not ready for whatever comes at the end of these words.

As I’ve said; again and again, I write to untangle.

I start at the beginning with words, or a phrase or a reference to the labyrinth or something Hannah Brencher wrote or something my pastor said in church (or honestly just during the work week) that pissed me off because I had to agree with it with gritted teeth.

And then I write.

Currently I feel that if I begin to untangle I might lose it all.

I feel, as if I am hanging onto my sanity with an absolute death grip.

That means, for today, it’s Hannah Brencher.

She does a series of notes for every month and there is always one or two that I latch onto.

For lovely words and truth; @ Hannah Brencher

I know that I know that I know I’m supposed to be letting go.

I can physically feel how tightly wound I am, how I’m still terrified at giving hope a chance.

Because if I can’t control it; who will.

(I know I’m freaking digging a deep hole with these words for my week but here we are).

Truthfully, I haven’t been eating really. I haven’t been sleeping.

I’ve been in survival mode for longer than I care to admit.

The bags under my eyes have their own bags and no amount of concealer can help.

(I also know none of this will be surprising to my best friend).

October was rough with ghosts and dates and memories of what once was. Then during nap time at work the day before Halloween, a text that friend had suddenly passed surprised and shocked me, shook me up.

Solidifying to me that nothing good ever happens in octobers.

I realized this morning standing in the cafe at my church that I am legitimately still terrified to hope that good things will happen.

(To me.)

And that controlling the hurt I encounter will make it hurt less.

I haven’t been feeling very brave lately. Or strong.

Or capable.

These words aren’t meant to strike pity or empathy.

They are literally just truth for me to begin to untangle whatever all this is from my clenched fists.

I think (I know) I’ve fallen back onto a pattern in which doing will get me out of being.

When I had to get taken care for a month last year, it was damn hard for me. Even amidst all that I was going through, I was still writing the menus for work, typing out notes for each and every day I was gone even though it physically made me ill to look at my phone.

When it feels like I’ve come so far from this place of doing as a personality trait I’ve realized it’s deeper and deeper.

That month of dizziness and being unable to move was the hardest month I’ve maybe ever had because if I can’t do then what am I.

So, today, I stare at my clenched fist.

I don’t know what to do about it.

I don’t know what I need to un-grip from.

I just know it’s there.

All the things amidst the grief, the pain, the things that don’t feel like hope but actually are.

And I know; none of this feels good.

The words would make my mom call me. Would cause people to feel like I’m worse off than I am.

But you know what; I’m still here.

And I’m choosing these words because right now in this world, this place we need to know that there are other people moving forward with us in the midst.

I never want to be a person who brings others into her distress, grief or pain.

I want you to know that amidst all of that you can live, you can have laughter and joy.

You can support people and make ordering McDonald’s on DoorDash something you do for the plot.

You can still have joy.

Amidst all this I may not have hope but you damn well better believe I have joy.

We have less than 60 days left in this year.

My word for the year was _______ again.

There are so many things I’ve had to do this year; again and again.

And damn it, I think I’m supposed to learn through these last two months of this year to hope again.

To believe that beautiful, bold, unattainably feeling things can happen for me.

Love, grace, bright spots of color.

I don’t know what else I need to un-grip from, but I do know that I’m supposed to un-grip my aggressive hold on hope and let it do its magic.

Hope, in the dictionary, is also a verb.

It’s an action.

So let’s go.

Let’s fucking hope.

For the rest of 2024.

And maybe onward.

With love,

Meghan

(Because why the heck not)
Hope isn’t a firework

October 3rd, 2024

I’ve lived a lot of life with the persistent fear that I’m letting people down.

And to be completely and utterly honest I’ve lived the last three years mostly with the gut wrenching fear that I’m letting my mom down with every step I take.

That I haven’t been strong enough, smart enough. That I’m not able to take care of myself.

That I’m not making her proud and that she’s be so disappointed in all the ways I’ve failed.

And I know that all sounds so heavy but if we don’t ever let the heavy things out than all we will do is let them continually weigh us down.

I feel as if I have a lot of evidence in my life of all the ways I’ve been chosen last, been written off a list, not been enough for the people I wanted to be enough for.

That I’m literally just right outside the map with no way if knowing how to be apart of the journey again.

When I was in Ecuador on one of the first days of the world race myself and my team of 6 other women were handed a map of how to get to where we needed to go.

The issue was the place we were and the place we were going weren’t actually on the map- the map was the middle.

We just had to choose to go off and get to the middle without actually having the tools.

And right now, in the moment, I feel like that again. Like I’m looking at a map and I have to get to the end without all the information.

And I feel like I’ve already failed.

I know it’s not true.

I know that I’m not always letting people down.

I know I’m not a last choice.

I know that no one actually has a complete map.

Lately, the heavy has been more heavy than I know what to do with.

And hope feels like fireworks in the distance that is gone in a flash.

But, if there is anything I know that is true it’s that we have to choose to face the lies and the words that go against who we are. We have to not be afraid of them.

We have to stare them in the face.

So that’s what I’m doing right now.

Staring the words in the face that become ticker tape on my brain sometimes.

Staring them in the face because the more I do the more I realize they are untrue.

Want to join me?

Want to stare the things in the face that feel so true until you realize they are mirage that flickers off in the distance?

And let’s replace it all with what is true and full of gritty steadfast hope.

That’s all.

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
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
It’s just a season

April 8th, 2024

I know I’ve been needing to write words on this even though I absolutely do not want too.

It’s a topic I try to avoid and try not to mention. It’s one I’m not super comfortable bringing up in a broader space because people have opinions and sometime helpful mostly not helpful stories and then they have prayers and Bible verses and things that I honestly just don’t need from those whom I didn’t ask.

But here it is; bottom line: I’m having a really hard time being single lately.

The disclaimers are already filling my head and the things I don’t need from people and the things I have done or to be completely frank don’t want to do.

I am absolutely fine 85% of the time. I’m pretty good on my own. I like space. I like being able to make decisions on my own.

And I would need a bigger bed if I’m expected to share.

But, the last month or so, I’ve felt the feelings of loneliness. I’ve felt like an island, felt like a person who is just outside of everything.

I don’t feel like a third wheel but I do feel like I’m just extra. I’m superfluous.

I’m the odd number.

And I’ve felt very evident feelings of wishing I had a person to come home too.

I’m pretty good at figuring things out on my own. I ask for help when I need it. I’m grateful for the people in my life who have never ever caused me to feel like I’m extra.

But, there are very evident seasons in life where the feelings hit harder and I’m in one of them right now. I’m in a place where the hours seem emptier and I don’t want to cook dinner for myself and I don’t want to make hard decisions by myself and I wish I had a guy I could look across the room at at a party and we both know it’s time to go.

Now, as I stated in the beginning: I don’t like to write about this. When a woman writes or talks about being single it can feel like she’s asking for pity or woe is me or whatever.

That’s absolutely not what I’m doing.

I’m finally pausing to write these words on a Monday because I can list people in my brain who probably have felt the same way but never feel allowed to say it.

I’m writing it because the bigger we let feelings get the more likely they will become the whole feeling and not just part of it.

I’m writing it because I know that I’m not incomplete just because I have seasons where being single sucks.

It’s just that: a season where it sucks and is harder than the last.

So, if you are here with me, I get it. I know we’re going to put on our big girl panties and we’re gonna do the damn thing regardless but we’re allowed to put a pin in the places that hurt.

If you’re sitting in a season where it really, really sucks to be single know you aren’t alone and it’s just that: a season.

With all the love,

Meg
So what if…

January 15th, 2024

But what if I just started writing.

What if I stopped being scared that I had nothing to say, no reasons to write.

What if I stopped being frightened that I was faking it til I make it in regards to the whole prospect of having hope.

What if I took a moment to lay down the things that feel like are covering my face or weighing me down.

What if I admitted I’m terrified of being left in the dust.

What if it feels like all those around me have climbed mountains and crossed oceans while I just sit.

Here on this island, too petrified to make a leap again.

What if I told you that I’m scared I missed something; that I stood my ground in such a way that my stubbornness turned to cement and my legs became stone.

What if I allowed myself to write the words that describe how it feels like grief shifted my foundation

so much that I feel like I’m in a completely different house.

What if I don’t know what to say anymore.

And what if I think that my fires and trials and tears have separated me from all those around.

And what if I told you; I know that the words that come before this are things that aren’t true but seeped in a bit of truth that I hold onto tighter than I should.

What if I physically forced my fingers to not press the backspace because I know the lesson in all of this; I know the beauty in it is that in our stream of consciousness we find the nuggets of strength and the things that desperately need to be pushed into the light.

What if I’ve realized through these almost ten years of putting words onto a paper, in the wind, or on a Sunday, that the only way you can put things into the light is to turn the light on yourself.

Because what if I told you that I miss the person I was before I became the girl who lost her mom.

The girl who didn’t feel like her identity was tied to a grief.

And what if I told you that I’ve been spending my quiet moments trying to figure out how to keep walking in the direction off the island I feel I live on.

But what if I told you I know I’m stronger.

I know I’ve walked through those flames and valleys and the things all around them.

What if I just started writing because I know I’m more than the flames, more than the tears and more than the hurdles in my life that brought me to where I am.

So, what if I started writing about who I am.

I am Meghan Marie Reeve.

I’m a friend, a daughter, a little sister, a writer, a traveler, a teacher, a singer, a caregiver, a home.

I’m a Meredith, a tequila drinker, an adventurer.

I’ve been through waves and storms more times than I can comprehend.

And I’ve kept moving forward.

So, what if I told you; it’s time to build again.

Because it is.

With love,

Meg
Start writing…

December 10th, 2023

There are three weeks left of this year and part of me just wants to hibernate so I can say I survived.

It feels silly to say that because the survival portion of this has really just been the last four months.

But damn, I have survived.

Right now, in my brain, I’m trying to absolutely disclaim away the things I’ve gone through mentally and physically in the last four months, the things I’m honestly still going through and dealing with.

But damn, I survived something and I think I’m starting to come to terms with that.

There were a few terrifying moments in the weeks I was dealing with the vertigo that caused me to not be able to eat or move or be. A few times when going to the bathroom I came moments from passing out only to be saved by the fact my toilet is next to a counter I could lean on. A few times where I came close to choking when small movements would cause me to throw up.

I cried myself to sleep most nights.

I missed my mom more than I could even articulate.

It was a lot.

And I’m slowly starting to realize what I’ve come through and how it has and still is affecting me.

My word (phrase) for the year that I’ve been coming back to is “coming back home to myself”. And I’ve been halted on writing because I didn’t really know how to hold the last four months and those words in the same hand.

And I am still not sure where this is going to go; I’m just going to choose to walk on the path and see what happens.

When I think about coming home to myself, in the beginning of the year, I thought that it would be about finding who I was again. I thought it would be stepping more into the things that brought me home. The brought me joy and that allowed me to lean into things that brought me power of self.

I had a moment, when I was laying in my bed, unable to move, to lift my head, unable to close my eyes, where I had the realization and the thought that I had been stripped of everything that I felt made me, me.

How could I be a home to others if I couldn’t even be home in my own body?

How could I be a home to others and to myself if I couldn’t even walk down my stairs?

I know in my knower that I am still me, Meg, even when I was physically trapped in my bed.

I know that I am still me, even when I felt like a shell of human.

I had to come home to myself with nothing to give to realize that I was still Meg.

I had to come home to who I was when I physically could do nothing to realize that people aren’t around me because of what I can do for them or what I bring to the table.

I had to come home to who I was when I had nothing to give to remind myself I can do hard things.

The last four months have been scary and anxiety producing and have caused me to question more things and interactions than I’d care to admit.

I’m still grappling with my balance and my face and my inabilities daily. I just push through the things that scare me. I’m still grappling with having to decide if this is my new normal.

I’m still in survival mode sometimes.

What writing these words has reminded me, is that l am, like my mom, a tough old broad.

It has reminded me that homes are so many things and they have so many functions.

And sometimes you don’t get to go downstairs for two weeks.

If you’ve made it to the end, thank you.

I hope you’re able to look back on 2023 and see the places you became more yourself, to see the hard things you pushed through.

To see how you’re stronger.

To see where the joy lies.

You did the damn thing, so let’s take these last few weeks and celebrate that.

With love,

Meg