Marry me. Own me.

Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

My big term paper in 12th grade AP English was about Jane Eyre, specifically the concept of love in Jane Eyre. I've been trying to create my home my entire life. I never had one place that I could call home. I had a smattering of locations, and all of them together just wasn't home. But I found a home inside myself that I carried with me everywhere. It was safe. I made forts with pillows and blankets and my pink depression glass lamps I've had my whole life; and I would read The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew. I don't remember a lot of snacks, but my mother often bought graham crackers, so those I remember more than anything else. That was my "home".

I was told that my real home would someday be with a partner, a husband. He would give my life meaning. He would take all of the idiosyncrasies about me and somehow create meaning from them. He, this unknown person, was the only way I could become whole and complete. He was the only way  that someone would care about me the way I imagined was possible. He would care that I hate watermelon and love swings at the fair. He would listen to me when I wanted to talk, because it would be his job to listen and care. In sum, my future husband would love me the way no one else could.

Well I'm 31 years old, and I'm not married. I've never been married. I haven't met this amazing person who is going to save me, change my life so completely I'll finally be whole. So I've had to learn along the way that life is too hard to wait for this person to arrive. Life is too long to wait for someone that may never come.

Whatever the truth, I've learned that one person doesn't "complete" another person, and so to even strive for that is a futile occupation. Don't I deserve to be complete all on my own? Don't I deserve to be loved all on my own? And don't I deserve to be fully known without a spouse? Yes, yes, and a resounding yes.

So I find my home all within myself, and I carry it with me wherever I go.

The Bachelor.

Vintage boobie shirt- a real winner :)

So as we all know, I love to talk about what I think, and reality television allows me constant fodder for discussion.

This season of The Bachelor brings us much more of the same: people stuck into unrealistic situations, manipulated to produce false romantic feelings, and constant drama and tears. Private islands, diamonds, and couture, do not a real relationship make. Which is fine, I mean, loads of people meet under strange circumstances, and somehow manage to eek out reasonable relationships. But life isn't perfect, and truth is stranger than the falsehood of false celebrity. So by the time the show is over, and everyone has fallen in and out of love, the reality of true life, real ugly human life, shows up, and no amount of célébrité is going to rewind the romance back to the bright lights and giddiness of the television show.

So every time the producers interview some woman who hasn't gotten a rose, and she's asking "Why? Why? Why?" and "What is wrong with me?" and "Why does this always happen to me?", I am screaming at the screen, "There is nothing wrong with you!!!" and "This has nothing to do with who you are - you are beautiful and wonderful and this isn't real!"

Anyhoo, all y'all bachelorettes out there, keep the faith and don't accept anything less than the absolute best.

Thus endeth Megan's brief fore into romantic advice columnist-mode.

Fin.

Haiti relief: Parte Deux

Stoneware mugs made in Romania - Eastern Europe, hollah!

Sometimes I get a pain in my chest when I wish that I could do something that I cannot do, and it usually has to do with helping someone, or teaching someone something. When I have that special moment of realization that I cannot control other people, or change them, or teach them adequately what no one but Life has taught me, I sit in a pool of sorrow, with the chest pain.

The world can be a horrible, awful place. And in my life, I have seen a lot of that awfulness, and I've had to reconcile with it, look it in the face and acknowledge that it exists. This has made me the awesome person that I am today, but it also makes me like eighty-years-old. And I walk around with this knowledge every day, hoping that I could save people from it, save them from war, and murder, and rape, and incest, and the deep lasting wounds in families and people that last for generations. I wish I could save people from ever knowing, because it's an awful thing, this knowing.

But it is in the knowing (about all the bad awfulness) that true peace and understanding can be found, where that inability to control that we all have, can be accepted and owned, and truly felt deep down in our bones.

When we try to spare others from pain, sometimes it backfires, and our best intentions are like water in a bucket full of holes. Sometimes the best things we can do for one another, are to stand in solidarity, to acknowledge pain, and to comfort those who mourn.

Too abstract? Whatever. Peace out mofos :)

Why does life suck?

Um, because not all shoes are red?

Siamo angeli con una sola ala: possiamo volare soltanto abbracciati.

Luciano de Crescenzo

Someone asked me this question this morning, at the ungodly hour of "before breakfast", and I think it's appropriate for me, who is now in the process of eating breakfast (at my desk, quite happily) to answer the question, now having the adequate blood glucose level to form whole words and sentences (exceptionally long ones, it would seem).

I think that, more often than not, it behooves us to acknowledge the "suckiness" of life, to admit that disease and war and hate exist, and that each of us, in our own way(s), lives each day carrying the remnants of these past and present realities.

It's okay to accept that life is shitty. Sometimes I think that the only reason I am able to see true beauty, is because I can recognize how rare and special it truly is.

Much love to all :)

"This is my confession..."

Well, just like Usher said in that far-off, how-does-time-go-by-so-fast, year of 2004, this is my confession: I hate debt. I hate it so much. I was raised by a freakin' refugee, people. No wonder I'm so neurotic about money.

I almost didn't finish graduate school because I realized how much it was going to cost me. It felt wrong. It felt unethical. But I got a good talking-to by my parents, and recognized that money is money, and an education is priceless, and my earning potential, blah, blah, blah. I bought into it. And now I have a masters degree and I still live in a garage. Now I could probably live in a larger garage if I weren't working so hard to pay off my debt, but I really don't make that much money. I am, after all, working two jobs.

I'm figuring that it's going to take me a good five years to get out of this hole, and those are five impoverished years. Let's remember that I don't even eat meat. Frugal is my middle name. Oh the injustice of it all! But I digress. I had a freak-out today (this was earlier; obviously now I can form whole sentences), wherein I screamed at the heavens in the presence of a safe person, that life isn't fair, and sugar daddies, and selling my soul, and why-can't-the-world-not-suck-so-much. It's occasionally difficult to accept the lot of a sacrificial person, a supposedly voluntary sacrificial person. I mean, even the Apostle Paul had plenty! If or when that ever happens to me, I won't know what to do with it.

But in the meantime, I will continue to be my thrifty self, shop at discard food places (shut up haters), and recycle like nobody's business.

Peace out.

Laziness & Photographing Textiles

Vintage Vera Neumann Curtain - A Rare Find!

So I have a ridiculous procrastinating habit with photographing textiles. They're so big! So yesterday, I faced my fear and did a bunch all at once, just laid them in the driveway in the early morning light, and shot the hell out of them. Yeah, so it's not professional, but it got the job done, and in the end, that's really all that matters.

In my professional, non-eBay life, I deal a lot with the term laziness. People tell me that they don't/can't do something because they're "lazy". And in response, without fail, I say, "Bull. Laziness doesn't exist. Find another word." It's my shtick. It's my higher self speaking, because in my darker moments, I am just as likely to think those same things about myself. But I don't want to be a person that ever talks about myself that way. Would I say that to a friend in a condescending way? Would I insult them like that, or would I be understanding and acknowledge their weariness/exhaustion/pain and need for rest? Probably the latter.

Calling yourself "lazy" is a cop-out. It's the end of the sentence. Nothing can follow it. It prevents you from digging deeper and figuring out what's really going on. It prevents you from acknowledging your own humanness and forgiving yourself from being imperfect and a non-superhero.

So forgive yourself already and take a nap.

Word.

The truth hurts.

1974 Vintage (Tattered) Holly Hobbie Doll

So I'm listening to Taylor Swift on repeat. It's a beautiful thing. I don't know why I get hooked on stuff, but she is definitely my current fave. I'm also hooked on having lots of thinking time. 108 degrees will do that to a person. Don't you wish that thinking actually helped a person? That somehow we could think our way out of problems? But no. It doesn't work that way. We have to talk, communicate with others. We have to be in relationships with other people, and that's where it gets tricky.

Yesterday, I received a lovely email from a relative telling me what a terrible person/daughter I am, etc, etc. Now, unless you begin to fret, I'll let you in on a secret: I've received at least a hundred of these things in my lifetime, and do not intend to have a freak-out on account of other people's misplaced anxiety. That being said, 100 of these nasty things can make a girl tired, and in 108 degrees, just done. So, even though I usually throw them away and move on with my day, this one stuck with me, as they tend to do every so often. And in a rare moment of clarity and temperance, I responded.

Nasty emails should not always be responded to. I find that filtering my email (along with various other accounts), allows me to completely avoid the nastiness that other people like to send my way. But sometimes the truth is necessary, and needs to be said. And you know what? Oftentimes the truth hurts, because the truth often just sucks. And that's just the truth.

But use with discretion, like alcohol.

Love one another.

 

Be the kind of person who is never silent about evil.

Me.

Discerning the truth is a difficult thing. Religion often gets in the way, makes us hate eachother instead of loving one another. We use religion to hurt people, instead of help them. We use religion to do harm instead of good. We use religion to avoid people instead of embrace them.

Hate is evil. When you wish harm on another person, for any reason, you perpetrate evil. When you silence another person, you perpetrate evil.

When something goes horribly, horribly wrong, it did not happen overnight. There were signs. People saw them. Some people chose to be silent. Others were silencers.

And we are all complicit.

Shame in me

Shame is an awful thing. I can feel it in my chest. It's like a fist grabs my heart, and then wrenches it to the right. Ouch.

I am feeling shame at this very moment, and I am trying to talk myself through it. I feel the shame of a little kid who is tattling, something I don't directly remember doing, but imagine I did quite often. Doing the right thing is very important to me. And when I see it out there, possible, I want to grab it and make it mine. I want to own the essence of being right. I want to own it and let it define me. I want to be right. I want to be right. I want to be right. Ad infinitum...

Being right makes us feel safe. It makes us feel in control. When that is questioned, when we make small mistakes, we are struck with the uninvited wrenching fist in the chest.

I have to talk to myself often, remind myself that I am fallible, remind myself that I cannot know the right and perfect way to do everything. All I have is myself, and whatever faculties are available in that particular moment.

In all reality, I am human and flawed, and I never do the right thing. But so are you, so at least we're all in this thing together.

The pain can't last forever.

Have you ever felt debilitating emotional pain? Have you ever done everything in your power to then cover up or numb that awful feeling(s)? If so, you are not alone. And I am here to tell you that that numbing that you seek is perfectly understandable. Those terrible feelings are oftentimes the reason people attempt suicide. Sometimes those feelings do indeed feel worse than one imagines death could ever possibly feel. "Hell? This is hell."

So this is a shout out to all those who have felt those debilitating feelings of awful, unspeakable pain. You are not alone. Ride it out.

Someday the pain will end. It has to. It really must end at some point. I'm beginning to think that if I equate emotional pain with physical pain, I can begin to imagine that this awful feeling in my chest that makes me want to die is actually my heart healing from a horrific injury. It has been blasted, and now it is doing the difficult work of putting itself back together. I'm not going to pour salt into it by sleeping around and making it worse. I'm not going to start drinking excessively. Alcohol will only make it worse.

All of things we do to ease the pain only prolong the feeling(s). And in order to get over those feelings, we must FEEL them. We must do the awful, heartbreaking work of sitting with those feelings and waiting.

So wait, dearies. It will end. Someday, somehow, it will end.

World AIDS Day

 

AIDS is so huge, and hidden, that we often forget how real it still is, that people are still suffering and dying, that whole countries in Africa are essentially being run by an orphaned generation.

Please don't choose to be apathetic and helpless today. Please do something.

As I focus my own advocacy and support towards Mennonite Central Committee, I will point you in that direction. If you already have something in mind, please comment on this post. I would love to hear what you do to honor those who suffer, who have died, who have lost, and who struggle each day to fight against oppression and racism and indifference and ignorance to fight the evil of HIV/AIDS. Please know that the most populated countries in the world are those most at risk for total devastation (e.g. India & China).

Please don't give up on caring. It hurts, and it's difficult, but it also makes you human.

Saving trash

 

There is a big shredder in [one of] my office[s]. Yesterday, I was trying to figure out how to get inside of it to get to the gold-filled middle, also known as "piles upon piles of raw material". There was no opening, no lock. I looked for a minute, then gave up. It wasn't something I was really wanting, but I thought it would be cool if I could take some home every once in a while.

One of my coworkers asked what I was doing (naturally). I said, "I love shredded paper". She replied, "You're kidding, right?"

"Nope", said I.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because it's awesome. You can put it in your compost pile. You can use it in packages. I just love it."

She stared at me for a good fifteen seconds without saying anything, and I stared right back. I was not ashamed, and I wasn't going to feel the shame that she was sending my way. But I couldn't waver in my own mind, not for her sake, but for mine. In order to truly love myself, I had to own what it is that I love, even something so small and seemingly insignificant.

Because seriously? When I get up in the morning, it isn't to make money (It's pretty obvious I'm never going to make much anyhow). It's to save trash.

I love trash, and I'm okay with it. Boo-yah.

No one asked for this.

The following statements may make you shudder. I don't know you all that well, so please bear with me. This is a personal thing for every person, a decision that no one does or should make lightly. The decision is whether or not to have children, or more specifically bear children.

When I was a child, I learned about overpopulation, and it seemed like a perfect time for me to decide not to have kids. After all, from my experience, families weren't all that great, so I'd be doing myself and the rest of the world one big favor. Well, I was a kid, a kid without hormones. And now I am an adult, one big grown-up, and boy have things changed. Could I care about overpopulation? Not much.  I figure that a couple won't hurt anyone. But that's not true.

For every child that I bear on my own, I have to raise: feed, clothe, emotionally support, etc. That child, once brought into the world, is in it. They didn't ask to be, but they are, and it will be my responsibility to care for them. Now that's all well and good. I want children. I (hopefully) have the capacity to bear children; great. But just like my vocation, I choose my personal familial set-up based on a higher ethic. I do not only think of myself and my own needs when I bring a child/ren into the world. My faith informs me that I am not an island, and in knowing that, I lose the blasé attitude that what I do doesn't and shouldn't matter to anyone else.

There are children in the world who already need homes, and they aren't all in China, or Ethiopia, or Guatemala. They're around the corner from your house. They're living in a broken foster care system whose only hope is the faithful action of millions. It may not be a childhood dream of mine, but it's the reality I face as an adult. And right now, I'm not in a place to have a child, but when I am, this reality will weigh heavily on my decision.

You can read more here about people who make this same decision, but for other reasons.

For more information about foster-adoption in your area, search with your specific state or county.

"She's a winner!"

So it hit me today, as I was driving home from the Urgent Care of my choosing, that I am not a healthy person. And unfortunately, the man of my choosing thinks that this is somehow important, at least he did a couple months ago when there was far more promise to our relationship [Insert tantrum here].

It matters. Health matters. Yes, I can do anything a normal person can do. I just get hurt more easily. Or I get an amoeba. Or I get intercostal chondritis, as the current case may be. How did I get it? Well, let's put aside the "continued strain on fight-or-flight mechanism in the hippothalamus", which is what the internet told me, and focus on the more real possibility of the hack job I did in the backyard several days ago. I don't want to start the list of things I cannot do because of my body, but let's just say that the list involves living in a humid place (or the jungle, as it were). So there go my missionary dreams.

And it would seem that it also limits my choice of mate, which is really ridiculous, because who wouldn't want to procreate with someone of my stature and aesthetic? Also, as long as we treat the children well, there's little chance of them developing anything heinous. We're strong farming stock, we Slovenians: peaceful, hearty, compost-loving. The only health problems in my family are caused by too much stress on bodily systems: immune, brain, nervous system, gastrointestinal, muscular. We're a sensitive folk. We weren't built for modern times (or high elevations, or again, the jungle).

So if that's not a motivation for you to set me up with your friend/brother/cousin, I don't know what more I can tell you.

I also have no dowry.

Hello Thursday!

The recycled tape is everything I dreamed it would be. It's like big strips of envelope that needs to be licked in order to stick. And it makes my packaging completely recyclable! I feel so good about that. I'm usually a 90-95% kind of girl. I do a lot, but not everything. I split my lot between two worlds. I do this because it keeps me sane. I do it because it's who I am.

This means that I am not a protester. I do not compost my own feces. I drive a car. I shampoo my hair. I use electricity. I shop at the grocery store. I do not have a vegetable garden. I humbly eat food that I am given, and shop at stores with picketing-protesters in front. I eat pre-prepared food and Mexican drive-thru burritos. I have $10 in my bank account, and am currently using my credit card to eat. Yup. That's me.

I am not perfect. I am human. I'm also awesome. True story.

Grow old, Grow up

I have an incredible need to please. I also have an incredible need to be good. Sometimes these two things come together and I get very very stuck. Now is one of those times. The two are fighting against one another, and I'm caught in the middle of their battle. It's getting ugly; I'm thinking negative thoughts about myself.

I love people, but I assume that they won't love me unless they see me often, and see my best parts often. If they see my worst parts too often, they will abandon me. If that were really to happen, it wouldn't be my fault, but it really would. I can talk the big talk about how I am my own person and God loves me as I am, and I should surround myself with people who love me just as I am, but let's face it, life doesn't work that way. We have to be nice and phone our parents, and do the laundry and buy groceries and not scream at strangers. There is a limit to "being yourself". I can only skip church so often before people begin to forget me. I can only be mean to my best friend so many times before she just stops calling. Being "myself" isn't always about doing exactly what I feel at any given moment. Sometimes there needs to be some thought behind action.

So I feel like crap, but I'm going to do my very best not to throw that all over other people. Because that's my job. I'm an adult. I saw a license plate holder last week that said "I will grow old, but I'll never grow up" and I thought, "Seriously? If the adults don't [act like adults], who will?" We are responsible, not because of some cosmic philosophical idea of "free will", but because no matter what you believe, your actions have consequences. Be yourself to your heart's delight, but recognize that who you are affects other people, whether or not you like it.

So I'm going to go to sleep tonight with that thought. I feel bad, but I'm going to keep fighting. Because quitting is not an option. I have people who love me.

Please, please, don't throw those away

There is a lot of information on the interwebs about recycling shoes. Over the past ten years, I've been sending old running shoes to some place in the Midwest. It feels kinda funny, now that I think about it. I don't know how I got on that kick. I was really into running (ridiculously), so I would wear out a pair of running shoes and send them on to someone who would then send them on to Africa, I believe. This was pre-TOMS, and specifically for running as a sport.

Shoes are very bulky, and if they are synthetic or rubber (Is that synthetic? It grows on trees.), they don't break down in landfills. I've seen a lot more labels lately that boast the shoe's biodegradability. In my dreams, I get to go through landfills in a spacesuit and find stuff that could be recycled (yes, yes, I know that people do this to survive).

You can go here to make your own decision about how to recycle your unwanted shoes. Nike has a large-scale recycling program that breaks down shoes into raw materials to build with.

I know that this is a lot of information for your already overloaded brain, but whatever you do, just don't throw them in the trash. If you need me to come to your house and deal with them, I will (but most likely I will just talk you through the process over the phone, because I'm really busy and you need to be empowered to do it yourself).

I cannot let you die.

My parents' dog died. She was old. It was time.

More than sadness, I feel relief. She suffered for far too long, and now she is happily frolicking in a better place, wherever that may be. And wherever that is, I'd prefer it to wherever I will be when my time comes, because all the dogs will be there, and I do love dogs.

Sometimes we live to avoid death because it is so scary. We ignore it. We ignore our diabetes even when we only have one leg. We ignore our discontentment, even when happiness is only a decision away. We pretend that bad isn't bad, because we think that if we looked at the bad, really looked it in the eyes, we'd die from the shock of it.

In one way or another, we all avoid bad things. We ignore phone calls from people we don't want to talk to. We put on a smile because we don't want anyone to ask us what is wrong. We stay in relationships with people that hurt us, because the alternative is so much worse.

Or is it? Is facing the bad the worst thing? Will it really kill us? Is the fear of death an accurate fear? Or a lie?

[Here is the part where I hesitate to tell the truth, hesitate to say what is real. Because the truth is scary to admit. When I tell the absolute truth, I leave no room for backpedaling.]

The fear of death is folly. Death has already been vanquished. Messiah Jesus has already come and defeated it, and we live in a new reality. We live in this world knowing that death has no power over us. Death has no power but that fear we allow to clench our hearts.

So I don't know what heaven holds, or if there is a heaven at all for me to see. But I do know this: God is unending in love: unconditional, extravagant love. And all that stands between us and that love, is fear.