Every. Single. Day.

Reader,

I'm not sure if you know this or not--you probably do--but the reason I blog is mostly because I like having a place to write and organize my thoughts. And, since I'm a writer, I'm obsessed with leaving something behind. I have this terrible and yet wonderful desire and need to spill out everything in my heart and mind and show it to people. I spent many, many years of my life hiding behind a mask out of fear that what I was thinking and feeling wouldn't be accepted. After getting over that, I have lost the inability to hide. In a way, I can't be anything but honest.

So here's me being honest. After my aunt lost her battle to cancer at age 26, a mantra I heard over and over again was "Live each day like it's your last." And that's a nice saying, but to actually internalize it is another matter entirely. So now here's senior year, and I'm facing each and every day like it's its own separate entity. I'm trying to savor each and every day, to make each and every interaction the best it can be. In essence, I've become a vampire, trying to suck all the positive experience I can out of each day.

I'm obsessed with not regretting my life. I'm stressing over what actions to take, the consequences, the results, the best possible decision that will result in the best possible outcome. I live... carefully. I'm just trying so hard to be the best I can be. I'm trying to be kind, gentle, strong, brave, trying to be someone that people respect and trust. I'm trying to be someone that if I didn't look where I was going tomorrow and was tragically hit by a bus, that I wouldn't end up wherever we all end up with any regrets. I also kinda hope a lot of people would want to attend my funeral, but maybe that's selfish.

I say all of this because it's hard. It's so hard. To live every day carefully, to be cognizant about every action, every conversation, to monitor and prevent yourself from acting on every thought--it's really fricken hard. But, maybe it gets better with practice.

It's senior year. They (Concordia) teach us that we should try to become responsibly engaged in the world. To do so requires examination, thorough awareness of our thoughts, actions, conversations. Every. Single. Day. To be honest, there's a big part of me that just wants to be like Bruce Vieweg, and I don't know if he's naturally so wonderful, or if he engages in just that much reflection and examination, but I want to be like him. This is how I'm trying to do it. To know where you stand and who you are is to be powerful. To be powerful is to have a great responsibility--and that requires doing things that are difficult and challenging, like putting so much effort into every single day.

I'm trying.

-Megan

The Beginning of the End

Senior year. Here it is. Am I ready? It's doesn't matter if I am or not.

I think the most best and worst thing about college is that it thrusts you into a world of constant social interaction. You eat with friends, live with friends, do homework with friends. Even the most introverted of introverts will experience a great deal of time with people. Simultaneously, the prominent and inescapable theme of junior and senior year is that you're profoundly alone. Think about it, that time is spent preparing to enter life after college, whether that be moving directly into the workforce in a given field or in my case, preparing for graduate school. It is a terrifying fact that after graduation, there is no communal dining hall, no neighborhood where all the houses have a name and a personality bestowed by their residents, no talent shows where you know all the performers. For me, there may be just a rainy city in which I know less than 10 people personally.

It's not a bad thing to prepare to be alone. The way in which the college student develops may just make them a better person. Think about it, in an environment surrounded by people of common purpose, you have to develop an individual identity that makes you stand out in some way. You decide who you're going to be and how you're going to relate to people. Of course this identity isn't static, but when you're working on it for 2-3 years, you usually create something semi-solid. You then have to take that identity and sit in it and transfer it to new environments, away from college.

Am I terrified? You bet I am. Is it okay to be thrust into a terrifying and uncomfortable situation? Yes. These days, I live off of To-Do lists. Today, as soon as I crossed one item off, I seemed to just add two more items to the list. Perhaps that's what entering adulthood is all about. No matter, I can do this.

It's Senior year. Time to do work.

Be well,

Megan

Two Wolves

I was just talking with Michael about how weird life is. Almost 5 months ago, I was proud of myself for simply being able to take a shower and brush my teeth. My life was so immediate, I was focused on just making it through each breath.

Fast forward a few months and I'm sitting in the living room of my wonderful house that I can pay rent for, watching classic films and sipping my favorite tea out of my "Will you be my beau-tea-ful bridesmaid?" mug. Not to mention I get to hang out with wonderful people at my job every day. I'm planning my life after undergrad, but before that I'm planning a hiking trip abroad, and a few conferences I want to attend. Soon I'll have to go buy hiking boots, get my passport, and get art supplies for the ceramics class I'm so glad I get to take. I also have to officially list Alicia as my vice president for my poetry organization...and plan my next performance (and our duo) which needs to happen soon. I miss being in front of a microphone.

Life is weird.

My friend Nick and I have started a pact to go to church every Sunday morning. We went last week and we'll hopefully go tomorrow. He even changed his work availability around so we could go consistently. Isn't that sweet? We both miss the routine of having something to do on Sunday mornings--and even if I don't identify as religious, I always did like setting aside some time to listen and think.

The sermon last week was on the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Anyways, the pastor told the story of a Native American elder talking with his grandson about the battle between two wolves in his heart. The one was dark and evil, made up of greed, malice, bitterness, and anger. The one was light and good, made up of charity, compassion, kindness, empathy, and humanity. The grandson asked his grandfather which wolf he thought would win the battle. The grandfather replied, "Whichever wolf I feed. I pray I will never forget that the wolf I feed will be the one to win."

My wolves are still fighting. It's a daily challenge to keep from feeding the dark wolf and giving attention to the little bitter nuggets that still exist in me. Every day I'm still trying to figure out how to find a balance between taking actions that honor and protect what I deserve--and reject what I don't deserve, and taking actions that honor how compassionate I want to be. It's not easy, and, as tends to happen, the opinions of those around me on what I should do fall on a vast spectrum between the two poles.

Life is weird. Life is hard. Life is beautiful. And though every day may be its own difficult battle, hindsight can show which direction the war is leaning. I pray I never forget that the wolf I feed will be the one to win.

If you see me feeding the wrong wolf, gently remind me. Some days I still need some help and support.

Love,

Megan

The More The Merrier

The process of self-discovery is ongoing and lifelong. I'm still learning to recognize what situations I like best and what fully makes me tick.

I don't know why or what it was, but for most of the last 2.5 years or so, I stuck very exclusively with very few people. Maybe I thought I wasn't capable of becoming emotionally intimate with more than a few people, or maybe I thought that's how social lives are supposed to look. Regardless, hindsight is 20/20 and now I'm fully aware that that social setup isn't what makes me happiest.

See, I'm kind of a social butterfly, and by that I mean I am extroverted to the extreme. When I was younger, I would seek to be around groups of people in an effort to pull myself out of my own head. Maybe I learned to love being around groups of people, or maybe it was how I've always been, but now that I'm older, I seek people and groups because I love to talk and laugh and tell stories, and quite honestly, I do get bored of binge watching Netflix. I feel very comfortable with new people, and with large groups.

So when my 22nd birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted to gather as many of my friends in one room as possible. Along with the help of my roommates, we threw a party at Applebee's and close to 30 friends showed up. Quite a few faces couldn't make it, which was sad, but overall it was a beautiful night, filled with hugs and love and joy. Here's a few photos:

                                                             One end of the table:

A few of my amazing coworkers:         

                                                                                                            

And general shenanigans:

Yes, sometimes I overextend myself with all that extraversion and then I need to pull back and get in some hardcore alone time, but hanging out with lots of different people, either apart, or in the same room, is my ultimate happy place. It's where I feel most comfortable and most like myself.

What took me so long to finally realize that's how I wanted to live that particular aspect of my life? Who knows. But I know I have a better idea and a lot more experiences to draw from, and I'm working on fostering a lot of connections that I had written off or neglected. 

I'm an open book, and I'm thankful I'm surrounded by so many incredible people who have cared enough to flip through those pages with me. 

Be patient, loving, and kind. Until next time,

-Megan

The Experience

I read somewhere recently that you should spend money on experiences, not material goods. Well, today I tried.

See, a while back, I did what every poor college kid does, and bought the cheapest stuff I could find at the grocery store. I bought corn tortillas, which ended up being a baaad decision really. What can you do with corn tortillas? They're dry, flaky, and mostly flavorless. Anyways, after a few failed food attempts, I decided I would worry about them later and just focus on my crazy week. So the weekend rolls around, and my mind drifts back to those tortillas...

I started researching recipes, finally landing on taquitos. It felt like a perfect opportunity to cook for the house--and an opportunity to try out a new recipe after my brilliant success with Thai peanut sauce the other day. Because I'm cheap, I decided to go with the corn and black bean recipe and forego the chicken. I already had black beans, so voila! I was in business.

Well, I had to go grocery shopping to pick up some extra stuff: corn, cilantro, garlic, onion, cheese, and guacamole. I also bought a dessert because why not? Family dinner deserves a dessert. I splurged a bit. Anyways, my roommate Alicia and I started our marathon in the kitchen, chopping the onion, garlic, and cilantro. prepping the corn and beans, sweating the garlic and onion, etc. Well, we get to the step in which we had to roll the taquitos and my tortillas just are not cooperating. No matter how hard we tried, they wouldn't hydrate or would just pathetically split. I googled technique after technique and didn't have any luck. Laid out in the pan, they were kinda hideous. Here I had spent all this time and money to try to make a nice dinner and I thought it would be ruined by a bunch of stupid tortillas.

During the prep, I kind of taught Alicia how to dice onions and prep garlic for the first time. We had a lot of good laughs at being domestic. And when I started freaking out, Alicia simply told me that we still had dessert and that McDonald's was just down the street. She even insisted on setting the table, lighting a candle, and putting up the flowers that Katelyn brought home from work. It was a full blown family dinner.

So the taquitos come out of the oven, and while some of them looked a bit rough, they tasted pretty dang good. We also had salsa, sour cream, and guac which helped. After serving after serving of taquitos and a strawberry cheese danish, we agreed that it had all worked out. Not to mention the sheer hilarity of the things that are said when you sit us all down together at one table. Afterwards, Alicia and I cleaned up and did all the dishes, all while joking that perhaps we would not completely fail in being able to complete domestic tasks in our future.

Hell yeah I splurged. Hell yeah it was nerve wracking to think that dinner would fail. And hell yeah it was an awesome experience. To be entirely honest, tonight was one of the best days of my summer so far. Forget my frustrating morning at work, the exhaustion, the tough week ahead. Today I watched a lot of soccer, drank a lot of tea, and spent a lot of time over onions, a hot stove, and a hotter oven.

The experiences are what we want. It's not necessarily the food, but the people you share it with that make a perfect meal. It's not the movie, but the people you get to lean into during the scary parts. It's not the financial cost of taking a trip to Scotland, or moving to Seattle, it's the thrill, the sights, the sounds, the adrenaline, the feeling you get when you hold up that pair of hiking boots that took you 98 miles across the West Highland Way along Loch Lomond.

Spend money on the experiences? don't mind if I do.

Be well. Share your happiness. Live the epic life.

-Megan

A Curious Absence of Fear

There's a poem by Robert Burns titled "To a Mouse", which contains a famous line that in simple English translates to:

"But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,"

Fun fact: This poem is the inspiration for the John Steinbeck novel. Another fun fact: Robert Burns wrote the poem, "Auld Lang Syne" which is the basis for the sad song everyone sings on New Years'.

Now, I talk about this because I have a heck of a lot of events coming up. I'm starting senior year, prepping for that (hopefully!) hiking trip to Scotland, prepping for my Grad school applications and grad school itself, which would involve a massive uprooting of my life and moving somewhere out west... I'm on the brink of a massive life transition. Moving to Undergrad felt risky and unsafe and new... and now it feels like childs' play compared to what I need to do.

But here's the thing... if you know me, you know how much of a planner I am. I always play it safe, never take risks, according to my friend, I never jump without knowing I have a safe place to land. But with all of this? I'm not afraid. I'm not worried. It worries me how NOT worried I am. I just want to go out and do it!

I was talking to my friend, Nick, about this Scotland trip. He went when he was a freshman. After learning it's a 98 mile trek, I remember drowning in my own excitement, eagerness, or restlessness. I started looking up incredible hiking boots. :P I know 98 miles may be torture at times, but I WANT it. I CRAVE it. Years, maybe even as little as months ago, I would be worried and scared and timid... My anxiety would twist and turn all the cons into massive, insurmountable obstacles. Not this time.

See, I'm the equivalent of the mouse Robert Burns was referring to. I planned out my life to the point where everything was safe and accounted for. The plan was there, I just had to live it out. Well... they went askew. I did everything I possibly could, with as much diligence as I could, and I still watched part of my life fall apart in front of me.

A wise professor once told me (while I was crying in her office) that there is a certain freedom and relief in realizing that every life situation, even those that we take to be stable, has the chance of ending or suddenly falling apart. As someone who craves stability and plans everything, I hated it when she said that. But as I'm preparing for my future, and just trying to live it without knowing what the final product is going to look like, I can finally appreciate all the merit and truth in her words.

I don't have everything planned out. I have a strategy, but very few expectations of what it will look like, or sound like, or smell like, or taste like, when I'm in Scotland or Seattle. I'm just taking every day as it comes.

The last line of the poem? "And forward, though I cannot see. I guess and fear!" That's where I differ from Burn's narrator. I guess and hope and look forward to it all. Come what may.

Be well,

Megan

Seeing the Big Picture

I woke up to the sound of rain. Soon after, Alicia, one of the housemates, made a pot of amazing coffee and I sat here sipping while watching Game of Thrones.

I talk to Alicia often about when I move away. I'm studying for the GRE every day, and soon I'll kick researching graduate programs into high gear. I've probably mentioned it many times before, but I'll be looking for a program in Seattle, Portland, Denver, or San Francisco. It feels so weird to be in such an amazing place where I am--living in an amazing house, being surrounded by so many loving and supportive people, and loving what I'm studying. This place is truly home, but I know I'll be ready to move on to the next adventure--and I hope that includes a coast, seafood, and good coffee.

See, there's so much more to life than this place and this moment. If there's one big thing that I've been trying to internalize over the last few months, even with everything horrible that's happened, it's that situations change. Sometimes they get worse, and sometimes they get better. My life is now on the upswing and all the pain and sadness I've experienced is only temporary. It's gently fading and giving way to better things. The big picture is that there's more to life than romantic relationships. The big picture is that I have the skills and tools and support to go make it somewhere else. If I keep my nose to the grindstone, meaning I do well on the GRE, do my research, and line all my grad school ducks in a row, there's no reason why I won't be completely fine in Seattle. The big picture is that I'm finally starting to reap the rewards of all the hard work and dedication I've put into the last 7 years of my life.

By nature, I'm a planner. I focus on the future. That's not to say that I'm never affected by the past. Seriously, if I could change the content of my dreams right now, I would say that my life is approaching perfect. But I can still wake up and understand that a dream is a dream and that my reality is perfectly fine. Focusing on the future isn't an excuse to ignore the now. Today I am sitting and enjoying where I'm at. I'm surrounded by people I love and by people who love me. I started to brainstorm people who I'd like to celebrate my birthday with and the list is HUGE. I love that, and I'm so very grateful. I have time and resources to pursue my dreams. That's a wonderful big picture to be living in. The smaller little details are that I'm sitting here, listening to a Yellowcard playlist, sipping coffee. Today I'm going to continue decorating and organizing my room, and I'll probably do laundry. What an amazingly epic feeling--to love the little details and the big picture.

Be well. Be patient. Be loving. Be kind.

-Megan