Change. Change is not a concept I am ever fond of or comfortable with. I’d generalize and say that “no one likes change”, but my partner seems to thrive on the stuff so I can’t pen sweeping falsities as per a marriage to a living, breathing human who jams on just that– change. If I have learned anything from my time on planet earth it is that CHANGE is a near constant and there is no perfect, or un-messy, or manageable way to transition with every change.

We are about to experience some real CHANGE around these parts as I go to work full-time. This change has me feeling all of the feels– I’m up, I’m down, I’m excited, I’m sad. There are reasonable explanations and scenarios for every one of these emotions, and then there is the reality that this transition is simply emotional for me. I have spent the last eight years at home with my babies. It has been this golden, magical, building, difficult, taxing, head-tripping, sanity-questioning, constantly self-examining experience. In the end, it has been the hardest, best thing I have ever done.

I have wanted to write a magnum opus to motherhood, if you will, since realizing the enormity of the changecomingatuslikeafreighttrain. A celebration of the JOY, the LIGHT, the LOVE I have found in this job called Mom that I did not look for when I planned my life. A space and a time that I didn’t know I wanted, or needed, or would treasure so deeply. I have wanted to share the gift, the fulfillment, and the hardship of primary parenting for a while now on the blog. But I haven’t found a profound, or extraordinary way to do it.

Of course there are already beautiful things written about the goodness and the difficulty of trying to be a stay-at-home parent and juggle career and creativity. One of the best was penned by Rufi Thorpe for Vela Mag, “Mother, Writer, Monster, Maid”. I could not say AMEN enough times as I read this piece. The struggle to create, to think, to ponder, to write, to reach into those deep wells of art and creativity– it seems almost impossible to tap those beautiful places as a mother and home-front warrior.

Let me rewind for a moment. If you had asked me 10 years ago what my life goals were– parenting, child rearing, mothering– would not, not have likely made the list or crossed my lips. Let me be clear that I did want to have children “someday”. I did want to get married “someday”. I always hoped to find another human who would journey this life with me, and that our love would bring children into that journey, that life.

But I felt as though wishing, and hoping, and dreaming of becoming a wife and mother was a waste of precious time. After all, I only had one life to live, I only had one opportunity to enrich and and educate and increase my understanding of the entire universe this ONE precious time– my life. And no one could give me a time, or a date, or a place, or description of how this would all happen or take place. And so I felt that I would do best to put goals that were tangible, concrete, and achievable in my scope. It doesn’t bode well in my book to put “Get Married” on a to-do list.

However, I was never closed to finding my person. I was never opposed to having children. I wasn’t numb to being in love. In fact, on the precipice of my transition to graduate school I met THE ONE. He was dark and dashing, and I fell hard. When my life story– my goals, and decisions, and career framework– met the river of my love story– my care, my heart, my deep desire for companionship, and the person I had hoped for– the confluence brought me such elation and excitement.

I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have found my husband, my partner. That confluence quickly brought us our fist child. The I, me, my became we, us, ours. I’ve often felt as though that meeting of my rivers, the joining of my two stories came at the PERFECT moment. Don’t misread, we were still young, broke, and clinging to finishing a master’s degree and finding gainful employment in economically hard times– it was the height of the housing and banking crises in 2008 when we said I do.

The gift of our hardship, at the time, was that when we found out we were pregnant we knew we didn’t have the means to afford day care. If I had already been working rather than going to school, I am certain I would have stayed in the work-force as my children were born. Instead, because we lived in a very expensive area, it made sense for me to stay at home. Let me also be clear that I understand very clearly that financial hardship can cause a family and partnership to make the decision that BOTH parents MUST work. In other words. I also realize my relative privilege in staying home.

That gift– the gift of my being able to stay home– is one that has rolled forward into our home and family life for eight years now. My greatest endeavor, my greatest work has become this thing called family. If you could hear me weeping NOW at the opportunity to meal plan, and clean toilets, and BE with my children during their formative years, you’d think I had longed, and yearned, and KNOWN that I wanted to be a MOM for my entire existence.

Instead I can now sweetly, tenderly celebrate the opportunity to be a mother. I can see the greatness, the privilege, the importance and being with my children and family in this roll. I can say that it has been the greatest calling of my life.

However, as with all gifts there was a cost. The cost was the burden of our financial care and providing fell squarely and solely on the shoulders of my partner. My husband found a good job. He is the type of individual that poured time, and effort, and constant energy into making his work great. But that didn’t mean that every day he felt like smiling like Ward Cleaver as he went off to work. Our world looked very traditional, but there were costs that he bore directly.

The burden of providing is no small weight. It is stressful, and care-fraught, and tiresome, and endless. I know this because I have SEEN the gray hairs on my husband’s head multiply, I have sat in an emergency room while he vomited because of the skull crushing migraines he was afflicted with, I have watched as he has navigated and negotiated the corporate world for nearly 9 years now and it has proven to be unending, exhausting, often thankless, stress-filled work– day after day, year after year. I honor and reverence his sacrifice.

There were also these wildly frenzied moments of what-the-hell-have-I-done, I’ve thrown my career to the wind and I will never be able to recover it. There were flashes when I saw myself as the counter-feminist trope I so loathed: barefoot, pregnant, jobless, taken care of by my man. My mirror image did nothing to impress me, or convince me that I was undertaking greatness.

Here’s where the confluence of motherhood (or primary parenting because it is not always the woman who stays home with infant and toddler children) and career path hit some Class Five rapids for for me and for every other woman who has fought against the reality of a glass ceiling including unequal pay, lower promotional chances, and diminished leadership opportunities in the work force.

My sacrifice was also real. There is NO WAY to do both– to be at home with your children and continue to rise in your career. The two are almost completely conflicting goals. I hope there is no mistake that I am not advocating one way or another in this sacrifice. How could I choose for someone else what is right for them and for their family? I cannot.

And I have seen the reality of so many of these situations– both parents working full-time, single mother working two jobs, mother as the primary provider, families whose children are enrolled in all-day day care, couples who can afford a live-in caregiver, and so many more! But here, now, in this moment on the day I begin my job, I know that FOR US we did what we felt was right. It is that choice to stay home (that I also realize many people do not have) that I am deeply grateful for RIGHT NOW. I would not trade that time for the world.

Last night the tears flowed. Long and hard and sobbing, I mourned all that this change means for me. Maybe that was selfish but I am going to miss my boys SO MUCH. My husband held me, and told me that everything would be alright. I know it will. But there will be some things now that I won’t be a part of, some moments I will never have.

I will miss morning conversations over breakfast, and taking my baby to his first day of kindergarten. I will miss being a homeroom mom and volunteering at my boys’ school. I will miss being the one they need to call if a tooth is lost, or an owie needs tending, or one of them throws up at school. I will miss being the parent on point. I will miss being THE ONE.

My partner has never been on the outskirts of raising our boys, he is present and prepared. But he has been the sole provider for the past eight years and our roles were very firm. Now there will be more flexibility, now I pray to be malleable. I pray for life to delicately throw a bubble over my babies, but I know that doesn’t really happen. It will still be me.

I will still be their mother, no matter what. Maybe more tears will fall, but today I am ready to begin this new adventure as a working mom. I will still be their mom. I will still need to kiss their owie, and check on the status of their school day, and help out with homework, and pack lunches, and kiss cheeks, and be their mom. And I guess this change is teaching me that I really can do BOTH.

XX, Megan

All images via Aubreigh Parks Photography

 

Image: Banksy; an article about this graffiti artist here.

Sometimes the hate of one brings out all the scars of the hate that has been with humanity from the beginning as it did in the Orlando shooting earlier this month. The discrimination, the disenfranchisement, the objectification, the religious rifts, the haves and the have nots. All of these age old faults glowed red-hot, hurting, aching, displayed by the senseless terror of one gunman opening fire on an entire frenzy of living, breathing, loving, loved, and beloved human beings.

It’s all buzz right now. The re-ringing in our ears of the recent attack at the airport in Turkey. 42 more human lives gone. The shouting blonde, Tomi Lahren, on The Blaze, telling the President of the United States that he is an idiot for not labeling this act radical Islamic terrorism. The derision and hatred carried in her bitter blue eyes as she excoriated President Obama and Muslims generally parallels the hatred of that act– cold, intolerant, killer.

The southern black writer, Kiese Laymon, who capsules Mateen as a radical American homophobe in his fearless piece about America’s complicity in violence and continued violence by scape-goating radical movements rather than addressing the unique American-ness of this act. The dangerous complications of our time-honored traditional culture of big gun boasting, small gun possession, which allows semi-automatic weapons to be brandished in public places.

Laymon writes, “We need the American media to tell its citizens the truth. Omar Mateen was a 29 year old radical American homophobe with a history of domestic abuse, who likely found some fertile ground for his American homophobia, misogyny and abusiveness in Isis propaganda.”

I understand the direct importance, immediacy, and need for us to find out who this man is– Omar Mateen. To know and to label him. We try to climb inside his mind and parse out all the evil pieces. Maybe Omar Mateen is all of these things– Islamic radical, radical American homophobe, homosexual who found self-loathing in the intolerance he faced on every side– religiously, societally, internally.

Maybe he is every one of them all rolled into one. I do not dismiss the importance of naming his hate, calling on it and calling it out. We may never know the true hybrid of his evil, we are only left with the wake of its bloody hell. But does this mean that we stand by powerless at crimes against all of humanity, crimes filled with the deepest hatred? I believe we are not powerless, we are called upon to love harder, love more deeply, love with vehement care for others, the other.

We live in a time where the faces of those killed– shot down, mowed down, exploded indiscriminately– are juxtaposed directly next to those of their killers. Selfies of a man in NYPD tourist shirts taken in the green light of his home bathroom, or shadowy figures running with a semi-automatic weapon away from a security guard before detonating a suicide bomb. It makes the horror seem that much closer, that much more real.

The horror was real for those in Orlando that night, one son hiding in a bathroom and texting his mother for help. That horror continues for their loved ones, families, and friends left behind in the wake of a hate so raw, enraged, and consuming. The horror was real at the Ataturk airport when gunman opened fire on the entrance and then detonated bombs that killed 42 people and counting, and wounded over 239.

It’s in the eyes. That’s where you see the humanity, the love, the life, the joy, the light, the kindness, the yearning, the family, the friends, the potential, the soul, the heart, the hope. The eyes that are forever closed now. I see it all in the eyes of the victims of Orlando and Istanbul, humanity’s struggle for peace.

Tributes of love, honor, grief, suffering, terror, and utter despondency wrap around us on our Facebook feeds. What will we do with these poems of life and loss? How can we turn their lives into an energy that gives rise to new waves of care and compassion?

We need to reach and grapple with the patterns of love and empathy we find lacking within ourselves. Or we will continue to reach and grasp at straws of understanding trying to grapple with a hate that will never sustain us. “Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” There is nothing to understand in hate, we must only fight to keep it from normalizing within us.

In the heart-rending words of Micah Player whose art piece mourning for Turkey is also linked below,

“With so many horrific attacks stacked on top of one another, again and again and again… I confess to the horrible sense that my heart is growing numb. I cannot allow that to happen. This cannot ever be normal. It will never be another day.

Horror, blood, hate, mindlessness. That is not the world I will ever accept as the one I live in. Love and sorrow for the courageous people of Turkey, shattered and murdered yesterday. Peace for us all. Someday.”

These acts of aggression, and hatred, and bloodshed cannot ever be seen as normal– cannot ever cause us to be numbed to the senseless acts of death, destruction, and terror.

Let the tears flow. Let the prayers ascend. Let the fires of remembrance be lit, and never let to rest.

Let the world of loving, understanding, empathetic, charitable, caring, giving, nurturing, uplifting, and enlightened men and women ban together in solidarity against this kind of hatred.

Let us value the beauty of one another and fill up our cups with the reality of each other. May they run over with love– our cups of life. May we let care for our fellow brothers and sisters of every gender, race, creed, sexuality, political persuasion, and religion be alive in us.

Please, let us be advocates for life, for civil discussion, for the pursuit of joy and peace for those around us, for love, for tolerance, and for the end of hatred and bloodshed across our nation and world.

Love. Please, love.

A letter to some of the gritty, get-after-it, gorgeous young ladies I know who graduated this year. When heading out into the great wide world remember:

One: Adults don’t have it all figured out.

Two: Don’t let anyone treat you like you are just a woman.

Three: Trust, trust, trust, trust, trust your gut.

Four: Find mentors. Make friends.

Five: Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll. Beware.

There are some things it just feels necessary to approach with thoughtful words– with your best. Pretending to give life advice is one of those things– a moment wherein you need to carefully asses the lay of the emotional landscape, if you will.

Most Graduating has come and gone. I missed my window to dole out my two cents before your four-corned mortarboards left your hand for the skies. But this letter is one to those who have already Graduated. You are now The Graduate. So I’m still going to send this message out to you as you wend your way onto life’s larger roads.

I’ll Not

Writing advices like these, you also have to be careful not to be cocky. Some pretty incredible Commencement Speeches have hit the history books. I’m most likely not going to say something as profound as Sheryl Sandberg in her commencement address to UC Berkeley this year when she chose to speak, not about life, but about death in the wake of her husband’s passing. A consummate tribute to the power that pain, struggle, challenge, and deep sorrow play in making us stronger, see it here.

I’m not going to say something as compelling as David McCullough Jr. did in 2012 to Wellesley High School when he emphasized that “You Are Not Special”, seen here. That’s right, he told every one of those graduates that contrary to what they might have been told in their Pampered Upper Middle Class Prep-School Enclave that they would NOW have to distinguish themselves as members of the human race to make their mark. That they were NOT the center of the universe.

“Get busy. Have at it. Don’t wait for inspiration or passion to find you. Get up. Get out. Explore. Find it yourself. Grab hold with both hands,” McCullough said. This speech is good stuff. It’s definitely worth a listen.

I’m not going to be able to pen something as catchy as Wear Sunscreen. Which was the foremost graduation speech in my day. A commencement speech given in 1997, so good that it was attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, a writer’s cult favorite, even though it was actually written by Mary Schmich. You can read it here.

And I’m certainly not going to be writing a quintessential post-teen punk anthem like Green Day’s Good Riddance. Affectionately subtitled, Time of Your Life. No, that’s not my cup of tea. But I do want to share with a few things I’ve picked up on my journey. A few understandings that have come my way. I hope they’ll help you in some way.

Adults Don’t Have it All Figured Out

I vividly remember a moment last year. I was standing in the kitchen, scooping something into the trash can and I thought something to the effect of, “This is it? This is being an adult? I wanted and wished and hoped to be an adult all of my childhood life, and this is what it turns out to be?!? This stinks!” And I wasn’t referring to the trash in the can.

You see, I was that child. The girl who always wanted to be grown up. I don’t know all of the reasons for this, and I’m glad that I wanted to grow up instead of remaining an over-grown child. But I want you to know that ADULTING is HARD.

It is difficult to be responsible for yourself. Yes, sometimes it sucks. When the rent, and the electric, and the water, and the trash, and the cleaning, and the cooking, and the working, and child rearing are ON YOU. Sometimes it can be very overwhelming.

It can also be overwhelming to move closer into the lives, and hearts, and the emotional presence of the adults around you. I’m talking about parents, and grandparents, and aunts and uncles, and old friends who will now be (at least partial) peers to you.

You will see more clearly than ever that they do NOT know everything. That they have many questions and patterns that may continue to keep them in pain, and that they seem almost helpless to free themselves from these chains. The same people, so precious to you, who have bathed you, wiped your face, wiped your bottom, picked you up after falls literal and figurate, who are your heroes, your examples, your touch-points– they still have hopes, and dreams, and hurts, and unrealized realities, too.

Don’t be alarmed. Don’t be afraid. As you move closer into their realm, their worlds– watch them, learn from them, try not to be hurt by them. They are still learning to be adults, too. Learn from their mistakes and missteps. Love them. But it is okay to realize that sometimes even the adults around you don’t have it all figured out.

Last but not least, you do not have to take on the entire role of adult right now! Try it on. Move out of the house. Go away to school. Get all of the education you can. Find a trade and become an expert in it. Get a job in a nearby town.

The best part about right now is that you can still be 17, 18, 19, or 20, RIGHT NOW! The time for hard core adulating will come. The marriage, the babies, the career, the bills. You don’t need to pretend to be 25, 35, or 40. What I am saying is enjoy this moment of being. Enjoy this in-betweening. You’re at the end of your teens, on the cusp of your twenties. Enjoy being YOU, RIGHT NOW!

Don’t let anyone treat you like you are just a woman

The longer I live, the more I realize that we are humans. Not just a woman, not just a man, but a HUMAN. Yes, I do believe that there are certain differences between men and women. I am not qualified to suss out in their entirety which are nature and which are nurture. No one is. You will be able to see and discern and decide how you think it all breaks down as you grow and learn.

It is true that you have the ability to bear children and a man does not. It is true that we are also made up of certain chemical and biological differences– this dance of testosterone and estrogen, these X and Y chromosomes. But I do no believe that these differences make women any less qualified or competent to hold any job, work in any capacity, to reason, to make tough decisions, to be the CEO, be the president, or to change the world.

YOU are this infinite, incredible you. Never before existent, and never to be replaced or recreated in this space or time. Intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable, emotional, faceted, intricate, YOU. Never let anyone else create a lesser version of you. Especially in your own mind. Please remember that when others try to make you feel small, it is only because they are honoring the deceit of their own smallness.

When you are passed over for a job, a promotion, a handshake, an acknowledgment, or made to feel lesser than your male counterparts for any reason whatsoever, please do not take this as a sign of anything other than what it is– a societal inability to stretch, and reach, and accept, and achieve equality and equanimity in the present. Work for the change.

Along with that, you must learn the VALUE and STRENGTH of ALL THAT YOU POSSESS. You must come to know yourself intimately. You must ask yourself hard questions. You must do and try hard things– succeed or fail. You must never let anyone dismiss you, and most of all you must never DIMINISH yourself or others.

Trust, trust, trust, trust, trust your gut

You are still learning a lot about yourself at this point in life. I know that. You know that. You are still growing into the person you will and can be. That is good. Take that growing in stride. But simply because you are learning, and forming, and molding yourself doesn’t mean that you should throw all that you already know and believe out the window.

In fact, I have it on good authority that there is Someone out there who is looking out for you. I do believe that God– the maker, the creator, the designer, the potter, the omniscient, the omnipotent– loves YOU and has a desire for you to have what is the very best for you in your life. You are His, theirs, really.

This means that you have come equipped with a receiver, a beacon, a radar. It goes both ways. When your conscience tells you that something smells, majorly or minorly, (because sometimes the stink will be covered up by some other tantalizing aroma) something is most likely not good. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, to steal a phrase. So when your gut tells you that something isn’t right– go with your gut– ditch it!

This you trusting you trusting God business is NOT for the birds. The more you seek after the good, the uplifting, the truly beautiful, the sublimely joyful, the sweetest that Life has to offer, the more you will learn that your instincts are not off the mark. The more you will recognize that everyone is endowed with this inalienable ability to choose the good and eschew the evil. Do good! Choose good!

Find Mentors, Make Friends

Because you are transitioning into this young adult phase of your life, please be on the lookout for mentors, teachers, and honest guides. I cannot tell you when you will find them, I cannot tell you where you will find them. I can only tell you that you will.

I was privileged to meet some of my closest and most treasured friends when I was in college. These are relationships and friendships that I carry with me to this day. People who I have been able to celebrate as they have moved on to new phases, and stages, and achievements. People who have celebrated me at my wedding, my graduation from grad school, the birth of my first baby, the career opportunities that have opened up for me.

When one of my oldest and dearest friends walked into my freshman astronomy class and sat down next to me with a soda and bag of penny candy identical to mine the rest was history. A rich history of friendship in the making.

This woman became my running buddy, climbing partner, my adventure seeking associate, my letter of recommendation writer, and I think all we did to deserve this was to be ready for this next friendship with openness and care.

Look for these people, these soul partners. In many ways you find the deepest connections of your entire adult life in this next moment of your life. Be ready! In other ways you may realize that some of the relationships that you took for granted with your parents, grandparents, siblings, and current friendships, are actually some of the most important to you always. Either way, this is a time to build relationships that will last a lifetime.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll. Beware

As you enter this phase of your life, a phase that potentially presents you with a lot more freedom, I want you to remember that the warnings you received in High School about SEX, DRUGS, and ROCK and ROLL were for a good reason. They still have a purpose.

And if you still don’t know very much about sex, sexuality, sexual activity, and the repercussions and sexual play at an early age, then for the love of all things go and educate yourself. Enroll in a birthing class, for all I care, but make sure that you know more than the basics, and make sure that you are informed about the entire process.

What I mean, to be a bit more blunt, is that abstinence is STILL the only way to be sure that you don’t get pregnant or contract an STD. Practicing sex at this point in your life is still very impractical because your need to create children is most likely at a low, as well.

Playing with sex is not only a recipe for pregnancy, it is emotional fire. Don’t forget that beyond the physical act of love making is an entire host of strong, powerful, purpose driven emotions that are meant to point you to eventual pro-creation. Does that mean you are ready for them? No. Absolutely not.

Sexual activity STILL carries with it the REAL and increasing LIKELY fact that you may contract some kind of sexually transmitted disease from your partner. This is not a statistical insignificance, this is a fact. I know that you have HEARD about crabs, gonorea, hepatitis, genital warts, herpes, HIV, PID, and HPV. You’ve probably laughed about it ALL with your girlfriends.

But none of these are a laughing matter. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) 15-24 year-olds account for HALF of all sexually transmitted diseases that are contracted each year. HALF. That the other half of the STD contractors come from the ages of 25-107. Yes, you’re almost 10 times more likely to contract a STD than the rest of the population COMBINED!!!!!!!

If you are going to choose to be sexually active, because this is a choice within your purview, then you need to practice proper protection for yourself and for your partner. Just because you do it in the dark doesn’t mean that the consequences aren’t always brought to light, and I can assure you that there WILL be consequences. Be smart. Be informed. Be safe.

The same goes for DRUGS and ROCK and ROLL. Both have their purpose. Both can be healing, but you have got to screw your head on straight and wise up to the fact that these decisions will be part of your existence, so to decide your path now will bring you peace now and health later on. Enough said. (There is always more to be said on this subject, but when in doubt, educate yourself MORE.)

Finally

I really do hope that you will live this portion of your life with joy! I hope that you will be happy and let it show. I hope that you will smile, and laugh, and not take yourself or anyone else too seriously.

I hope that you will learn. I hope that you will cram all of the knowledge, and education, and skill into that beautiful brain of yours. Push it in. Pump it in. Fit in as much as you can because some day, and it probably seems far away now but will come so much sooner than you anticipate, you will have the opportunity to pass on that knowledge, and wisdom, and learning to others. I am not JUST talking about being a mother. I am talking about bringing good and wholeness to others because you have taken the time to study them out. You can bring them to the world.

You are in a beautiful budding, buzzing time of life. You have SO MUCH in front of you! Don’t look back. Look forward with hope, and awe, and readiness. Grab on to your future with your hands, your feet, and your teeth. Go with it. Grow with it. And YOU will become YOU. The woman you were always meant to be!

XX, Megan