she writes on sundays

  • the edge of the deck

    Today in church while I stood in our cafe’ during worship a very poignant story from teaching one year olds popped into my head.

    I had a new family in the one year old room and the dad was there chatting with me outside about his daughter when she rolled backwards and was going to plop off the deck we had for riding bikes. I caught her with my foot so she didn’t fall back. It wasn’t a far fall- just a few inches but I wanted the dad to know that I saw her, I would care for her and help her not get hurt.

    He shrugged his shoulders and said that it was ok. She was allowed to take some risk and see what happened.

    I took that conversation and that thought and kept moving forward with it.

    There is something about a child, specifically a tiny child, to be able to take safe risks. To see what happens when they do something like trying to climb on a couch, or up a slide. Or what happens when their trike pops down the four inches from the deck.

    Making space for safe risks for kids is a big part of early childhood education.

    Because on the flipside; how often do we say, “That’s not safe” or “that’s too high” or “you’re going to fall”.

    Instead of letting them figure out themselves (obviously with you standing beside them).

    I sometimes think with kids we tend to lean to yelling across a room or a playground to not do something instead of getting closer to help monitor the trying. That’s why one of my favorite things in my preschool classroom was cooking and baking and chopping. I was nearby monitoring the try. Monitoring the safe risk.

    Now, I’m not saying leave your four year old in a kitchen with knives or an a balcony with no fence.

    I’m saying give them space to take risks so that risk aren’t scary. So, that their first thought as an adult isn’t “This isn’t safe”. Unless, of course it’s actually not safe.

    I believe a part of our “that’s not safe” or “that’s too much” or “that’s too scary” is because we were never given opportunities to do things that weren’t safe or that were deemed scary. We were protected from those things and so now we have an inability to distinguish the levels.

    Because sometimes, we need to jump.

    Sometimes, we need to take a risk.

    Sometimes, just because something is scary doesn’t mean it isn’t good.

    Yes, the impact might hurt, but you’ll never know unless you go for it.

    When I decided about 12 years ago now to go on the world race I remembered having heard for quite awhile the simple phrase; you have to jump to be caught.

    I was scared. I was going to move from all the things that I knew and had and had built to go travel around the world and then who knows what. And even though it was scary and it was taking a risk- I still knew it was right.

    There are a few moments in life that I can think of that I made decisions to do something scary; to take a risk and to jump.

    Now, I’m not saying this time is like those times. I’m not moving or leaving the country or anything like that.

    I think the risk right now, for me, is I’m supposed to be louder.

    I’m supposed to speak about, write about and be a placeholder for a few things that don’t normally have a placeholder for them.

    I feel as if there are things I’m supposed to delve into that feel a bit like my toddler who I kept from falling off of the four inch deck. Yah, she might have fallen off her trike on the plop down.

    But she also might have felt like a toddler badass doing so.

    I might say something, or write about it, or speak out the things that are scaring me or causing me to back away from the edge.

    And I might fall or get bruised or get hurt.

    OR

    I might feel empowered and strong.

    I’ve spent a lot of my life taking risks that seem really big to other people. I’ve moved states, traveled the world, I’ve spoken in front of crowds, I write and give out a lot of who I am so that other’s feel less alone.

    But to me, to be known, to be seen is the most terrifying thing to me.

    That’s the jump. That’s the edge of the deck.

    I’ve been in a season of avoiding. Avoiding words from other people because all I feel like is I’m going to be told what I’m doing wrong or that it’s not enough.

    I’ve been avoiding my own 20%.

    So, here I am, at the edge of the deck.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • It’s just a season

    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

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  • ten steps behind

    I absolutely without a doubt in my mind know what it is like to always be about ten steps ahead of depression.

    I went out this afternoon to just be outside and write and be around people but not be with people and not let myself sit in my house or my room for hours on end. As I’ve established prior; it does my soul well to sit in spaces with others where I’m alone but not actually alone.

    And as the beer garden I sat in filled up for trivia I just knew deep down inside that going home and being home wouldn’t be something that would sit well with me. I wouldn’t eat dinner, Iwould  just scroll or read or stare and the depression that I’ve been about ten steps ahead of might catch up and I might trip over a pothole or find myself closer to that depression monster trailing behind me then I wanted to be.

    It’s funny because I wouldn’t say that I’m “struggling” persay. I wouldn’t say things are bad or dire.

    I wouldn’t say that I’m straddling the line of light and dark.

    I would just say that things are just things.

    In reality I know what’s happening.

    The cliff I sense in front of me isn’t one of jumping into darkness. It’s not one where I feel like I’m taking a leap that’s far down.

    I’m not jumping because I know something will catch me.

    Honestly, the cliff is probably more just a step. Not a step down or up. I’m just crossing over a line that I swore I wouldn’t cross to again.

    But, I believe because of that, I am also ten steps ahead of depression.

    To me depression isn’t a proper noun. It doesn’t deserve an uppercase letter or a characterization. Depression doesn’t deserve to be given a chapter title or even be a section.

    Because at the end of the day depression doesn’t always show up the same.

    Sometimes it’s a thing in my body that is like a one of lava lamps that doesn’t plug in that makes it’s decoration by combining an oil-based color and a water that will never combine. The place where the oil meets the water is a little fuzzy. It does something but it ever fully changes the water. Just colors the edges and makes it blurry.

    Sometimes depression is simply the absence of light. It breeds in the darkness and the lack of sunshine and turns off parts of our brain that remind us we can create our own light.

    Sometimes depression is a small voice that finds it’s way through a crack in the armor. It shouts and shouts but is actually just a small whisper telling us the dark will never become light, that we aren’t enough, that we aren’t good.

    That we can’t have hope.

    And sometimes depression is just a flashing sign to remind us that one time, long ago, we were friends.

    So, with that in mind, I decided to go sit around more people and eat dinner and write words that remind me that I am more than the depression that is ten steps behind me.

    Lately I’ve felt like I’m actively running from it.

    I’m running from the grief and the depression and the anxiety.

    I’ve had a few more nights than I care to admit wherein I felt it creep closer than ten steps away.

    Where I let it creep closer than ten steps away.

    Because sometimes that’s easier than choosing the weapons and things I need to defeat it.

    I know all those things are real. I spent a lot of years in a lot of churches being told that I should just pray away the things that felt heavy. I spent a lot of years in a lot of churches feeling like something was wrong with my brain.

    I spent a lot of years in a lot of churches believing I was less of a Christian because I dealt with strong thoughts of suicide.

    But, what I’ve come to realizing is that I wasn’t less of anything.

    The places I were in was less like Christ for telling me there were things “wrong” with me.

    So, yes. Sometimes (like right now) it absolutely feels like depression is about ten steps away from me.

    Sometimes it feels like I’m peering at it knocking at my door on my doorell camera.

    Sometimes it feels like I have to lock my door at night to keep it away.

    And I’m not here to say that it’s normal or that we should be ok with it.

    We shouldn’t.

    Depression (pardon my language) can fuck off.

    But it doesn’t always listen. It doesn’t always stop creeping up.

    It joins forces with grief and anxiety and stress and it mounts an attack because it’s sneaky like that.

    So, sometimes we have to go sit in restaurants or bars by ourselves.

    Sometimes we have to choose to work a little later on something.

    Sometimes we have to choose to keep walking so it can’t catch up.

    And sometimes, (like right now) we have to write words to remind others that they aren’t alone in the feeling that depression is about ten steps behind them.

    Because you aren’t.

    Let’s keep moving forward.

    Together.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • It’s time for hope.

    I was looking for a cute little not cheesy quote to pop into my letterboard for the cafe at church this morning and I happened upon this one:

    “Easter is the soul’s first taste of spring”

    To me; living in Washington these last 9 years, there is nothing more hopeful than the first taste of spring.

    There’s nothing more hopeful than being able to open my window, to wear shorts even though it’s still a little chilly or to be able to sit outside on a patio.

    It’s amazing the hope that light brings.

    Shortly after my mom died I was having so much trouble sleeping and I’d wake up in the dark early morning hours and just hope for the light. I realize that part of it came from getting to my parents house about 4am on the day she passed and physically just waiting for the light to come because maybe it would change something.

    I’m always in some way waiting for the light hope brings.

    I try to imagine the hope the women felt when they discovered the empty tomb. Did they even know?

    Did they know that, that singular moment would become a reminder that we can hope even in the darkest, most devoid of light times?

    Did they realize they were stepping into spring?

    I think I’m ready to step into spring, no matter how much my whole self is trying to fight against that fact.

    I had a conversation Friday that yesterday I spent the whole day reminding myself that the words I said were ok. That I didn’t need to second guess myself.

    That I was allowed to step into spring.

    That I was allowed to step into hope again.

    It’s a hard thing to do when life situations, the noise around you and your brain is trying to remind you of all the ways stepping into hope is not for you.

    How stepping into hope can set you up for heartache and pain and being blindsided.

    How stepping into hope is hard.

    But, I think of those women in front of the empty space where a man they loved and cared for had laid and I wonder if they were scared to step into the hope that maybe it wasn’t over yet.

    I wonder if stepping into hope, into spring was hard, because what if it was something worse?

    But, if I’ve learned anything about those women in all my years in church and teaching Sunday school and Bible classes in college is this:

    They did hard things.

    Even hard things like stepping into hope and choosing to believe the light was not only coming; but there.

    I don’t know what you believe or don’t believe, if today is just another Sunday or some form of in between.

    I do know that we all could use a little extra hope and light; however that may look.

    So to you from me; here’s a reminder:

    You’re allowed to have hope.

    That things will change.

    That it will be different.

    That you’re strong enough.

    That even though can do hard things; they won’t always be hard.

    You’re allowed to believe and take hold of the fact that it isn’t over yet.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • the boxes we put ourselves in

    I wrote something last week I didn’t want anyone to read. I posted it and while some people read it, it didn’t get the traction my words normally do and honestly- great.


    The words felt ugly and in-between-ish and like I was letting someone into my cluttered, clothing filled room.
    But, here I am again.


    I’ve erased a lot of words on this Monday. I’ve erased words and second guessed my abilities and contemplating quitting and hitting rewind and trying something again and again and again.


    I wanted to give up today.
    I wanted to give up because I feel like I’ve outgrown the box I put myself in.
    I wanted to give up today because I absolutely feel like I should be stronger than the fear that battles against the thing in my soul that tells me that I’m more than the box I put myself in to heal.


    Amidst my exhaustion and my grief and my physical ailements and all the ways that I feel like I’m absolutey not being enough for all the people in my life is the fact that I put myself in a little enclosure to heal.


    To heal from burnout, to heal from the friendships that told me I wasn’t enough for them, to heal from the ways I felt like I abandoned people when I left the Y, to heal from losing my mom, to heal from inability to keep moving forward after I lost my mom, to heal from the ways I feel like I’ve failed people because my grief got too big.


    In all honesty the list goes on and on.
    But the box shouldn’t go on and on.
    The box needs to break.


    Because in spite of; I’ve kept moving forward.
    And that, to be absolutely frank, terrifies me.
    And I don’t know what to do with it.


    How do I let myself out of the place I put myself to keep myself from getting hurt more than I already felt like I was?
    How do I get past the fear?
    How do I stand again?


    I know people might think it’s silly that I do all of my writing for the most part in crowded bars. That my best writing and thought processing comes from those places.
    But, really, right now, I’m sitting in a crowded bar on a Monday. I’m waiting for my dinner and drinking one of my favorite drinks and I’m undisturbed by the noise around me.
    What I do know, beyond a shadow of doubt though is this: I’m not the only one.
    No, there is no one else writing, it’s pretty loud and boisterous currently. It’s just that, the amazing, hauntingly heartbreakingly beautiful thing, about humanity is that we are all writing and watching the words of our own story go in front of us and around us.


    i know in this bar right now are people have and are dealing with grief and burnout and rejection. People dealing with being single and are having the best day and the worst day.
    I know, with almost 100% certainity there are people who are trying to learn to stand again.


    So, even though I got no anwsers. Even though I still have the fear of what happens when I chose to let myself out of the place I put myself in to heal, I know that I am not alone.


    And I know, sitting in this crowded bar, there is a hope I hold that will find a way to move me forward.
    We’ll stand again friends.
    With love,
    Meg

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  • notes on quiet moments

    God and I have a tumultuous relationship.

    We’ve been that way for awhile. We’ve been back and forth and I’ve met with him in different spaces and places. I’ve yelled at God on dirt roads in Swazi and cried looking at so many different bodies of water.

    I’ve struggled with not feeling enough. Not being able to hear God enough, not being holy enough, not giving or volunteering enough.

    I’ve struggled in the church of feeling like too much. Too big. Taking of too much space. Using too many words.

    They are things I’ve picked up along the way in all the churches I’ve worked at, the ones I’ve attended, in the ones I’ve sang at, in the places in between that became church spaces.

    I haven’t been able to go to church in a lot of weeks because of theater and other life things and I can always feel it in my soul when it’s been awhile since I’ve sat in that space. I can feel when I haven’t given myself a few moments to be quiet- which I’m aware I should do on days other than Sunday but the way in which my life is able to pause on a Sunday morning even when I’m in the café or setting up Sunday school is something different.

    It’s a different kind of holy moment for me.

    And that’s the holy moment I can’t walk away from.

    I don’t think in the last few years I’ve ever been angry at God persay. I’ve never thought the things around me were the fault of some man in the sky who looks down and tries to make my life more difficult.

    I’m absolutely not someone who thinks that literally everything happens for a reason. I just believe you can use everything that happens FOR a reason.

    And while I haven’t been angry at God or thought that I was just trapped in this game that kept lobbing grenades at me; I have desperately wanted to run away from anything that looked like God.

    I realized that everything in my life felt like clutter; and all I wanted to do was shut all the doors so no one could see in. I’ve tried to move quickly because the things I felt happening were too big for me.

    In every quiet moment I had, I was searching for something to fill it. I was trying to find noise or a job or a project to not take a moment.

    So, today, when I decided to listen to some old worship music while I worked, this line was a billboard in front of me:

    “If I open my hands will you fill them again?”

    And in the moment hearing that lyric, I thought, why would you?

    Because all I feel like I’ve done lately is fail.

    I have felt like an awful friend, a not great daughter, I’ve been not doing all the things I need to at work, I’ve been showing up halfway.

    Part of me is scared. Scared to be lonely, scared to open myself up again to places and things that remind me of parts of myself that felt too big.

    Part of me still believes I am too much and not enough all in the same breath.

    Part of me listens to the small voice that tells me to be silent.

    And part of me doesn’t know what to do with my hands.

    I wish I could say that I know where this is going.

    That I am writing from the end of this part of my story and not the middle.

    Hell, this might even be the beginning of a chapter.

    And that’s where I’m at today.

    That’s where my feet are.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • again.

    I knew when I got home today after the first free Wednesday I’ve had in awhile that I needed to write. Part of that is because the people I was with have the habit of helping stir words around for me and part of that is because I knew I needed to take a quiet moment for myself.

    When I don’t want to write words or when I feel as if I have nothing to contribute to any conversation is when I realize I actually should be writing. I should be finding the space and time to plop some words down and ship them off to see if anyone feels like I door even just so simply, a year from now I can come back to these words and see if I’ve grasped something I didn’t grasp before.

    Yesterday, I said to a friend via text that it felt as if I had spent the last few months climbing a mountain only to find myself back at the bottom of a hill needing to climb up again.

    And honestly, I’m tired.

    Now, here’s the thing, I can easily and effortlessly disclaim away the things and thoughts in my brain right now. I could absolutely tell myself I have friends who are in much worse places right now and I could shut my computer and be done with it.

    But, instead, I’m choosing to grit my teeth and look at this computer and admit some things to myself; to you and maybe it will give you the permission and space to do the same.

    And maybe, admitting those things to ourselves will keep us from jumping down wells to try to find the bottom that isn’t there.

    That, of course, if you’re not new here, brings me to the movie the Labyrinth. Because the minute I had the picture of falling down a well, I thought of all the times the character Sarah falls down holes, or wells, or what have you and ends up further from where she was (or sometimes, closer, she just doesn’t know it).

    I feel as if I’ve jumped into a few metaphorical wells lately in hopes that it will bring me back to a place I’ve been before or at least to a place that I can feel like I have footing.

    I’ve jumped in a few metaphorical wells lately because I’m a bit nervous at the things that I believe I’m supposed to be saying and doing and if I could just move back a few steps maybe I’ll find my strength in doing the path again.

    But, that’s the thing about trying to re-do a path again; you can’t. No matter what the path won’t be the same and you won’t be the same.

    Right now the path I need to be walking down is one where I use my voice and say the things I need to say.

    I need to say them again and again.

    It’s simply high time for me to speak again.

    I need to choose to climb the hill in front of me even though I’m tired and I need to find a way to believe in what’s been placed in my hand.

    If none of this made sense; fine.

    If it all did; great.

    If you feel like you’ve been trying to jump down into a well to start over; I get it.

    And if you feel like all you’ve been doing lately is climbing mountains; know that I am here- with you.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • an iowa redemption

    The musical The Music Man isn’t one that someone would look at the story and character arc and see a theme of redemption. It’s a love story and a story of character growth and a few other things; but not really redemption.

    And yet, here we are.

    About 2 weeks shy of four years ago our cast and crew of the Music Man found out the horrible news that because of a looming shutdown over a virus we knew so little about, that our show was getting cancelled. We all felt a lot of emotions not knowing what was next and what we would end up dealing with and going through.

    Now, four years later about a dozen of us have had the opportunity to be a part of bringing this story to life on the stage.

    And last Friday we got to finally set foot in River City, Iowa.

    Before the curtain came up it truly hit me how different I am from 4 years ago. What I’ve gone through, how I’ve grown as a person in so many different elements of life. What I’ve lost, what I’ve gained and who I’ve become.

    But, I also realized, though, there are a dozen or so of us who are getting to “finally” perform this show, there are a cast, crew and orchestra who get to pick up a little of our redemption.

    Because we all are different then we were in March 2020.

    There are so many stories I don’t know about, so many humans who are a part of getting this to the stage who had to overcome things, who lost people, who found people, who changed because of this season of life that we all collectively walked through.

    Last Friday, we got to be a part of this thing, this story, that never got to be.

    We get to stand in the gap for those that couldn’t be a part of it this time around, we get to finish the story that was started four years ago.

    We got something back that was taken.

    I’ve been having so much fun in River City. I’ve gotten to be on stage with friends I’ve never been in stage with, I’ve met new friends, I finally got to wear an obnoxious hat and I’ve gotten to see incredibly talented humans finally get to step on stage as characters they left behind four years ago.

    I’m sad that my parents aren’t able to be in the audience, that I can’t send my mom all of the amazing costumes I’m wearing, that I didn’t get to tell her all the insanity of tech week or how much fun it is tap dance again.

    But, I’m thankful for the ability to put a period on the end of this Music Man sentence.

    I don’t what you’ve lost in the last four years; if it’s time or people or relationships or pieces of yourself. I don’t know if you’ve had the ability to sift through the muck and find those pieces again.

    But I do know that redemption comes in some of the most unknowing places; including a city on a stage full of stubborn Iowans.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • land mines

    I’ve done about 5 things prior to sitting down and writing something because I don’t want too.

    Here’s the thing: if you’re new here, if you’ve stumbled upon these words somehow; something you need to know about it this- I write to untangle.

    I write to untangle with the hopes that in my untangling I’ll find a piece of something I didn’t have before. I’ll find something hidden or I’ll let myself take the time to face the thing I haven’t been wanting to face. I share because at some point (at many points) in all of our lives we have to untangle things. We have to figure where we’ve been and where we’re going and what we need to do to get there.

    And no matter how many times in our lives we come to that place that feels like a jump it still gets a little scary. It still feels like something trepidatious, because when we choose to move forward, we’re choosing to walk into something we don’t know, we’re choosing to move into something unknown- sometimes leaving something lovely and sometimes leaving something battered and bruised, sometimes somewhere in between.

    I had a breakdown on Friday. In the midst of doing lunch dishes everything just sort of weighed down on me and I felt a panic attack coming. I text my friend Amanda who in turn told me to call her, so I went outside and cried on the phone to her. Amid the conversation, a phrase came into my brain, simply this; “I feel like I can’t get my feet on the ground”.

    Since that moment on Friday that phrase has been told back to me, once in a picture and then in a dream wherein I was barefoot and upon searching what that meant saw many different variations of feeling like not being able to get feet on the ground.

    But today, as I was leaving church and echoes of words my pastors said ricocheting in my brain I thought “I don’t want to move forward because it feels like there are land mines”.

    I feel like I’m about to enter a time where I’m doing some things I used to do again. It’s not the same because I’m not the same, but the actions are similar.

    It’s terrifying and I absolutely see the land mines.

    And I have to wonder-am I strong enough to withstand the blows if I step on one.

    The truth that I know, down in my knower, is that I am indeed strong enough to withstand the blows.

    I am strong enough to get back up again.

    I’m just tired of it.

    (it is to be noted that I stopped at this point and scrolled on my phone as to reach the end of this collection of words)

    There’s a part of me that I have to acknowledge that I’ve set aside the last couple years. I left a job on the brink of collapse, exhausted, burnt out and without hope. I moved into a safe place wherein I was going to have space to breath and just as I was catching my breath- my mom died.

    So now, it’s been almost 2.5 years since I walked away from that part of myself and now something is telling me I might be coming back to that part of who I am.

    And as much as I’d like to say that first my feet have to find the ground, if I’ve learned anything, we cant wait for that- we just have to keep moving forward.

    Something new is on the horizon- it’s pushing me onward and reminding me that ‘again’ isn’t the same- it’s just that- again.

    I’m probably going to step on some land mines on the way, but I have to remember to move forward with my eyes up regardless, I have to remember to lead with hope.

    I have to remember the strength I’ve built and the ability I have to keep moving forward.

    I’m going to be completely honest: I have no idea what is actually next. I just know it’s time to watch for the light again and see what happens.

    If you’ve made it to the end of this, here’s a piece for you:

    You are stronger than the things that came before that gave you the strength. You won’t meet them again the same because you aren’t the same.

    You got this.

    With love,

    Meg

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  • again & again

    When I first started thinking about my word for 2024, I quickly heard the words “build again”.

    And then I quickly said “well, no”.

    While part of me said nope because of a deep need to not feel like I was just re-doing 2023, I also said nope because it didn’t settle to my toes. The words didn’t make me go “yep, that’s it”

    So, I’ve just been waiting.

    Waiting to see if something popped up, or if I had a word highlighted to me.

    Thus far, in 2024, I’ve just been trying to take care of me. I’ve eaten dinner every night, done skin care, tried to drink more water. I have just been moving in a forward direction.

    I don’t in any way shape or form want to do anything from last year AGAIN.

    I’m a human who is very passionate about how we are constantly changing. You can’t really go back to someone you were in the before because of all you’ve become since then. I try to lean strong in to the not having of regrets. I don’t think “everything happens for a reason” but I do believe you can use everything that happens for a reason.

    So, today, sitting in church I kept writing the words “again and again” over and over.

    I was stuck on the phrase. Again and Again.

    I got to thinking about my preschoolers when they would do something that would spark joy or laughter, or when we’d listen to a song or story they love, there would quickly be an “Again!”. I think, looking back to even my one year olds; again is a word that quickly comes after the word ‘more’. Again provides better context for what they want and the repetition that they get when the word is used.

    Tiny humans use again for hope and joy and laughter.

    Then I thought of training or rehearsing or anything where you need a repetition of movement to get better or stronger.

    “Again!”

    It’s a command. A word that says so much with only two syllables.

    Again circles back into the conversation when you’re going through something. This summer when I was dealing with vertigo and unable to hold anything down I went about 14 hours without throwing up when I moved. But, towards the end of the evening on a Sunday, I got up to go to the bathroom and I threw up- and I remember tears falling down my face and saying the phrase, “not again”.

    So, needless to say, ‘again’ circling through my brain has been something I haven’t wanted to look in the face.

    The past week we’ve had snow, I’ve been staying home and I’ve been cleaning and organizing and cooking.

    And the world around me has, for the first time in a while, started to feel like home.

    Home; again.

    And I made the realization that maybe, just maybe, my word isn’t build again, or live again, or home again.

    Maybe it’s just _________ again.

    Blank again.

    I feel a bit like I was holding a deck of cards and I dropped them all.

    But instead of suits and numbers they hold words.

    Write, build, dance, home, sing, rest, laugh, smile.

    The cards hold pieces of who I am that I’ve lost along the way the last few years.

    And its time to pick them up again.

    It doesn’t mean that I’m going back to what I was or repeating what I’ve done.

    It’s just time to be Meg again in ways I’ve forgotten, in places I’ve missed, in spaces I need to show up in again.

    So this year, again and again, I’ll move. I’ll pick up cards.

    I’ll find myself walking forward with who I am and what I’m about.

    Again and again.

    With love,

    Meg

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