Positively (Im)perfect

One year ago I wrote a post on the reality of wrinkles. Fast forward 1 year, when life has heaped on more joy, stress, suffering, learning, more freckles-turned-age-spots, and of course, more wrinkles. I’d be lying if I said wasn’t still tempted by sparkly, smoothing filters, products & treatments touting age-defying magic, the pressure to hit the pause button on this gradual process of aging. But I also know that this is temptation over truth. Illusion over reality. Superficiality and pride over authenticity & wisdom enough to consider the long view. So I’m reminding myself of truth today: my life-lines are the visible manifestation of the sometimes invisible crucible of life experience — a lifetime of moments layered upon years of building character, strength, faith, & wisdom. It’s hard to withstand the world’s pressure to conform & compete in the pageantry of physical “flawlessness” as a prerequisite for acceptance; but peeling back the layers reveals

I am #1in10, and I'm on a mission to spread awareness on proper treatment of endometriosis so other women, I pray, can avoid suffering for the same life-altering span (18 years) as me. Endometriosis is a likely-genetic disease where tissue similar to that of the endometrial tissue in the uterus (which either nourishes a newly-formed baby or is shed through menstruation if conception doesn't occur) grows outside of the uterus; usually in the abdominal cavity, often on other organs within the abdomen, and sometimes rare locations such as the lungs, throat, or even in the brain. This displaced endometriosis tissue responds to hormone fluctuations as well as produces its own estrogen , and causes widespread and progressive acute pain, fatigue, and infertility among many other symptoms.   This is not a small problem. Approximately 10% of women worldwide endure endometriosis (akin to the number of women with diabetes), yet for the majority of women suffering from endometri

"Come and see." These were the words Jesus spoke in last Sunday’s gospel--His response when the apostles first encountered Jesus and asked where He was going. Our priest shared that praying on this passage had led to his vacation, and invited us to try too. “Ask Jesus where He is going and meditate on His response to come and see .” It's no secret that I'm a sucker for some good Ignatian meditation, and I brightened at the idea, thinking of all the ways Jesus might be calling me. Sinking to my knees after communion, I immediately went to my imagination—watching Jesus approach, feeling the possibility of adventure, the magnetic pull to follow. Where are we going? I sang out in my heart.  Where do You want to lead? The Two words that returned shook me from my prayerful, hope-filled reverie: “To Calvary.” Calvary?  I recoiled in fear, grasping to qualify it with some strand of hope—what was that my friend always said? “From the cross alway

This post is a miracle you guys, because blogging in this season takes colossal effort. But I'm making it happen because I know if I don't, the Megan of next year will be so annoyed with the Megan of today. Future Megan: Thank you.   Current Megan: You'd better be grateful. Moving along... This was probably my worst reading year in recent history, but I'm okay with that, because #lifeyo. I'm in an Army course right now that's just shy of Master's-level in both time commitment and work load, so while I can indeed claim copious amounts of reading, only a small portion of that can be relegated to pleasure versus subjects that make me want to gouge my eyes out. (Granted, some of the leadership and military history stuff is mildly interesting, but it can't balance out the other 30 hours per week lost on things like government contracting and how a good idea fairy becomes a tank). Onward and upward! -- Happily, I wrote a historical fic

I’m sitting here today in a different state than years past. I’ve begun so many new years with the assurances of a young and confident yet somewhat naive mind intent on turning over a new leaf. But this year, my mind feels older, quieter, tired and spent...yet also somehow clearer and wiser looking into the increasingly cloudy future. For I see better today what I’ve tried to ignore before - today is simply a continuation of yesterday. Tomorrow, a continuation of today. An unbroken and hardly insignificant string yesterdays and yesteryears leading up to the here and now. Though a fresh blank calendar page holds infinite possibilities, it does not--cannot--sever today from the realities of yesterday—bad or {blessedly} good. I’m finally stepping into this new year freed from the delusions that the tick of a seven to an eight might solve the world’s problems or magically transform me into the person I intend to be all at the stroke of midnight. What I do now understand is

I. HATE. WAITINGGGG!” I actually yelled this aloud the other day in a painfully weak moment {thankfully no one else was around to witness my crazy}. Despite all the reflections on Advent and waiting, despite getting my world rocked that morning by my friend Mave's incredible Blessed is She devotion about God’s timing , and feeling utter peace in my soul—proclaiming to the world that “Jesus is in the waiting!”—only hours later I was once again cursing the wait and having an internal tantrum that would put a threenager to shame. Because human nature is a fickle and powerful thing. I’m in this weird space where there simply aren’t enough hours in the day and I desperately need more time, yet I’m also just aching to skip ahead to certain days that my heart has been hanging onto—almost as if life itself depended upon it—days that, in my mind, will bring happiness, hope, and maybe even healing. But I realized something today—it all finds its roots in my desire for control. I’ve set

Yesterday, my husband did the most exceptionally loving thing. He cleaned the windshield. You see, we were driving home from a weekend in the mountains, which had, naturally, caused our windshield to collect a fair amount of used-to-be-bugs. Also dirt: copious amounts from our time spent exploring the loveliest places on God's green earth--which, naturally, involved driving down some mud-puddle-covered, out-of-the-way roads. And on the way home we were going be driving past (or, rather, through) another one of these breathtaking places: a narrow canyon with rugged walls reaching toward the heavens, anchored at the bottom by a singing, snaking river. And, because I'm...well, me ... naturally, I wanted to get some good clear pictures and videos of it all. So I asked my husband in passing to run the wipers over the windshield smears or something of the sort, I can't quite remember. All I knew was shortly after we'd merged on to the highway with a fully fueled

Hey-o... Just chillin here on Easter Saturday, writing from the exact same place I started my Lent on Ash Wednesday... The sick bed. Yep, the same place of suffering, the same no-social-media isolation [only one day away from the end of my fast], the same slow, slow passage of idle hours when I crave the distraction of busyness--especially when there is SO much to be done in preparation for our celebration tomorrow. Aside from my mounting chronic illness woes, I've been fairly free of communicable junk since that fateful Wednesday some 40 odd days ago. Until yesterday. I'm sure it's no coincidence that I am here. Again. [Seriously, God?] Ironically, I waxed poetic just the other day about Jesus proving that He is actively with me in such moments as these, and worse...because I finally shut up and let Him show me . I offered myself anew, even as I felt like the crud was coming on yesterday, thinking, "I can do this with You, Jesus. I will suffe

It's been a rough, tough patch lately in an already barren desert of a season. My body has all but quit. So many hard situations plague the surrounding world. So many loved ones seem trapped in a slow downhill shift toward another long, dark valley. Today, I felt the sigh of reality escape my lips as I gingerly washed some day-old strawberries that were already headed past their prime, hoping to pump some vitamin C into my sweet boy who'd just spiked a fever. He glanced at them and a smile lit up his flushed little face. "Soon," he said, his tired but bright eyes widening with delight, "we won't have to buy them from the store anymore. We'll pick them from our garden!" I'd forgotten how, a few weeks ago, I'd excitedly led the kids out back to show them the first, almost hidden surprises of spring. The green baubles of new buds clinging to dry skeletons of branches. The ruddy stubs of rhubarb and sharp green edges of bulbs, peeking o