Dear Perry,

The dog threw up at 3:30 a.m. so I decided it was the perfect time to finish my letter to you. I’ve begun it a dozen times because I wanted it to be right. I wanted to say ‘I love you’ in a deep, sweeping, passionate way without somehow becoming overtly sentimental, or sappy.

But after a week of thinking and re-writing I still don’t have that formula. Instead I’ve found the perfect way to tell you I love you, and that is by completely overthinking it!!! That’s me-style, yes?

Plus, as per my usually just-a-tad-off-subject to the outsider, I’ve fixated on a phrase I heard maybe three years ago:

“Attachment is the root of suffering.” Or reflexively, “The root of suffering is attachment.” Other versions replace attachment with expectation, yet another with acquisition.

Long ago I had asked myself how marriage could be supported or degraded by this/these statement(s), and now, stay with me because I promise this letter will get better. But the moment these two ideas collided again– marriage and suffering due to attachment– it felt as though I needed to answer the question(s):

Did our marriage constitute “attachment”? And was our marriage the root of our suffering? Was I causing you suffering by loving you?

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Way too much for a simple letter to my Valentine. But I couldn’t shake it. I intended to find an answer to my question.

So I did what every good scholar would do– I googled it. “Attachment…suffering… marriage”.

Well, actually, first I googled to make sure the quote was actually even a quote. I found that it did indeed come from Buddha. From the Sunakkhatta Sutta: To Sunakkhatta. Yes, the quote is legit.

Now here’s the rabbit hole we need to go in and out of quickly: At first I was trying to say, “Well, does marriage really constitute attachment?” Maybe the meaning of this word ATTACHMENT was really FALSE ATTACHMENT. But that argument was obviously weak as it rested purely on semantics.

Instead it was more of a ‘duh’ on that one because, YES, marriage is an attachment to someone. The deepest attachment, in my opinion. The more I thought about it, the more I read, the more perplexed I became. And then I stopped.

This line in an article I’d been reading titled, “A Happy Married Life: A Buddhist Perspective” gave me that pause. “When one ceases to crave for sensual pleasure and does not seek to find physical comfort in the company of others, the need for marriage does not arise.”

This is where my questions ended (to a point, mind you), and my understanding grew. At least my understanding of myself. I suddenly realized that perhaps I didn’t subscribe to going AWAY from other humans and isolating oneself to seek enlightenment.

I didn’t believe that ‘physical comfort in the company of others’ was a crutch. I believe it is the true nature of human beings to be together. To learn together, to work together, to live together, to love together, to get married.

I didn’t think that the best practice to learning how to be the highest form of being could be achieved alone, or in a vacuum. I felt that enlightenment, for me, would be reached with YOU. Not just with you, but with the community of humans earth is made up of (there are some real philosophical difficulties here, too, I realize).

I said to myself, “I do not need to seek personal asceticism through giving up my relationships.”

Now I want to be careful here to point out that there is pure merit in going away and removing oneself from casual society for a time– even sometimes an extended period of time– to meditate, contemplate, and receive a truer self. Prophets through the ages have shown this.

Out the other end of my rabbit hole I realized very clearly that YOU are what I both wanted and needed. I felt as though we chose and choose each other in a way that sought the best for one another. Here I can subscribe to a very Buddhist principle of a happy marriage and that is the reality that, “marriage is a partnership of two individuals and that this partnership is enriched and enhanced when it allows the personalities involved to grow.”

Marriage is the ground where we should employ our most virtuous characteristics– love, patience, self-less ness, tolerance, and understanding. Marriage is the space where we can practice being the closest to an individual, and giving the most space to that same love.

Here, the Buddhist perspective is very clear and uplifting, “Man and woman need the comfort of each other when facing problems and difficulties. The feelings of insecurity and unrest will disappear and life will be more meaningful, happy and interesting if there is someone who is willing to share another’s burden.”

Marriage can and does cause suffering. Anyone who has been married can attest to that. But is it not important to work through suffering to brighter ends? To more brilliant outcomes? To becoming enlightened? To becoming one?

Again, the Buddhist perspective is insightful, “A successful marriage is always a two-way path: “humpy, bumpy” — it is difficult but it is always a mutual path.” The married path can be “humpy, bumpy”, certainly. But it is always taken TOGETHER.

I’m married to you because I love you. I’m married because I don’t simply believe in the institution, I believe in the evolution. The evolution of two individuals giving directly to one another in their most self-LESS practices. Not easy. Lifetime practice.

I don’t simply love you. I like you. I choose you. My love, in the immortal words of Macklemore, “If I only had one helmet, I’d give it to you, give it to you.”

Love,

Megan

Images: Aubreigh Parks Photography

All quotes taken from: A Happy Married Life: A Buddhist Perspective

Dear P and M,

It’s often while I’m choring– vacuuming, sorting or folding laundry, staring into the depths of a toilet with scrubber in hand– that I have moments to think about things. Life, love, and family. And often when I have this time my thoughts turn to YOU.

I am really grateful to be your mother. I hope it shows in the way I look at you, the way I hug and hold you, the kisses– eskimo, butterfly, and otherwise– I give to you. The sacrifices I make for you.

I also hope that my love shows in the chores you’re asked to perform, the homework your are encouraged to finish, the extracurricular activities you are supported in. I also hope my love shows in the cooperation, kindness, empathy, consideration we advocate you offer toward each other and the outside world.

Becoming a mother was not an easy journey for me. I don’t say that in the sense that it was fraught with physical hardship, or that I didn’t want to be or become a mother, because I did. Maybe it is more aptly stated that it has taken me a LONG time to understand how to be a good mother– not only what that meant to me, but what it looked like to my heart– and that I am definitely still working on it. Always will be.

What I mean is that being a parent is a challenging endeavor, and that is putting it mildly, not matter what your situation. No matter how much you’ve desired to take on the role, or not. No matter how much you’ve dreamed about the prospect of children, or the joy you imagined they’d bring, or the path you thought you would take, or not. There is no playbook.

There is always this motion involved in mothering built into every learning capsule, every growing situation because of precisely that– YOU– you are always growing, changing, learning, morphing. Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually you– the child– are always and forever becoming a new kind of thing, a new person. And yet, there are pieces of you that truly do stay the same. Those core individualities that make YOU like no one else who has lived or who will ever live. It is at once astounding and staggering.

The learning curve is one of the steepest I’ve encountered– both becoming a PERSON and becoming a MOTHER. But lingering on the challenge won’t carry you very far in any aspect of life, instead you have to seize the opportunity with your hands, your feet, and sometimes your teeth! It takes grit to shoulder the responsibility and then watch with incredulity as the thing that was once so daunting and worrisome turns into something so beautiful and fulfilling.

Motherhood was and is that work for me, the hardest, most challenging, most beautiful, most fulfilling work I’ve done. Because being your mom is the BEST thing I’ve ever done. It is the MOST important project I’ve ever set my will to, and it is the HIGHEST calling I’ve ever or will ever be given.

I wish I could share with you in some way the joy you bring to rise and bare in me. I guess in family life we share that joy by showing love to each other. In fact sometimes it’s nothing more than your smile, a hug from you at the end of a long day, your mastery of a skill, or your hard work and effort as you struggle to perfect anything– walking, biking, writing, skiing, kindness, care, politeness, conversation, friendship, love– that cause the uprising of that joy.

Joy like a wave so strong it washes me anew with the deepest gladness, so powerfully sweet and good that I can practically taste it. And listen, I realize that some of these lessons are LIFETIME ventures– lessons we are each learning over, and over, and over again– so there will be trips and spills, scars and pain.

I wish I could conjure up a spell every time I thought, “Wow, YOU are INCREDIBLE, my son.” And that the spell would give you my eyes, and ears, and thoughts, and heart for just a moment. To see what I see, and hear what I hear, and feel what I feel– my unequivocal, uncompromising love for YOU. Always.

Love,

Mom

Images: aubreighparksphotography.com

Dear Presidential Candidates,

Really?!?

Seriously?!!?

Are you kidding?!!!?

Are you a part of reality? Are you Americans? Are you The People? If you are part of us, then why are you so deluded, delusional, egotistical, bombastic, self-aggrandizing, so God-awfully fruit cake, just. plain. NUTS? This is the best that your disparate parties have to offer?

Each and every one of you believe that you are not only capable of being the “leader of the free world”, but qualified to act as Commander-in-Chief and the figurehead of foreign relations for the United States? This letter is not directed at ANY of you individually, but rather an open letter to ALL of you collectively.

I’ll be frank, as a member of the voting public I am appalled at your political peacocking. As someone who considers themselves a conscientious and informed part of the electorate, I am stunned, dismayed, aghast at the reality television lens I believe you have brought into Presidential elections. Indeed, you have left me breathless with your performances.

I mean breathless in the context of being gut punched– repeatedly.

Have any of you spent any amount of time looking in a mirror recently? Or any time watching any of your debates or public forums? I’m not talking about staring in the mirror while memorizing prepared speeches, or practicing pretend smiles. I mean have any of you spent time with a board certified therapist recently?

How has our pool of Presidential candidates come to this?

Listen, I understand that this RACE this push to put yourself in power is CRAZY. So crazy, in fact, that no rational human being with even a lick of sense will participate in that which we call the race to the Presidential Election.

It really does take super-human strength to flip-flop according to your audience, to criticize and corrosively condemn every other candidate constantly, to talk and talk and talk and pander for an entire DAY-after-day and then wake up and do it all again.

Does it injure your integrity or your sense of soul to climb in bed with corporate sponsors and business affiliates who have little to no care for the wishes or future of this country? Does it hurt to support special interest so aggressively that you forgot that there are not just hundreds, not thousands, but MILLIONS of Americans who are forgotten, underserved, or even negatively impacted by your glad handing big business like they are individual constituents? Yes, those are questions.

How does it feel to have let the BIGGEST, BARREL MOUTHED, BILLIONAIRE Bull into the China Shop since that Mavericky Pit Bull who wore lipstick eight years ago, let alone the fact that she is now his personal spokesperson? Does it pain your good sense to hear that racist, sexist, alarmist, narcissistic, even mildly murderous (according to some latest remarks in Iowa) candidate call you out on stage?

I guess after reviewing this letter I don’t have many comments, only questions. Questions that root in my very pride to be American.

One of the most simple, straightforward articles I’ve read so far comes from NPR called Meet The Candidates In 100 Words And 60 Seconds.

In that vein, I’ve complied my own very simple, very straightforward list of all of the candidates that I’ve affectionately titled Meet The Candidates In Under 5 Words. With a total read-time of 17 seconds, it’s worth it.

BERNIE– TOO OLD, TOO SOCIALIST

TRUMP– BOMBASTIC VITRIOLIST, and frankly NUCKING FUTS

HILLARY– BOUGHT IN, and BOUGHT OUT

CRUZ– BEHOLDEN TO CHRISTIAN GUN-TOTING ZELOTS

O’MALLEY– MOB BOSS

CHRISTIE– WAFFLING RED TO BLUE

BUSH– THREE IS MORE THAN TWO, NOT BETTER

PAUL– LIBERTARIANISM KILLS

RUBIO– IMMIGRATION POLICIES AGAINST THE GRAIN

FIORINA– FEMALE IN THE RED FRAY

CARSON– ZERO EXPERIENCE, ZERO FOREIGN POLICY ACUMEN

HUCKABEE– MAKING TEA WITH THE BEST

 

In the words of one of my dearest friends, Michelle. A woman whose intelligence and political acumen are unsurpassed, a woman whose letter was infinitely more concise and clear than mine, “Dear Candidates, you all suck!”

Sincerely,

Megan

2015! What a year! 2016. What an opportunity.

It always takes me time to sink in to a New Year before I am ready to look either forward or back. Before I am ready to sum up what the past year meant to me or taught me, and what I have my sights set on in this new 365 days.

I’ve never felt this practice set me back or behind. Last year my resolution was simply based in one word– LOVE. I felt as though I needed to love more and better.

I am still unpacking and evaluating my progress. This pursuit for understanding and acting in true LOVE will almost certainly take a lifetime, so I’m not going to prognosticate or pontificate on the subject now– give me 30 to 50 more years and we’ll talk!

I can say that I was so lightened, enlightened, uplifted, and LOVED by my little family this year. I felt as though I came to better understand what it meant to love my children and my husband, and I felt that my understanding allowed me to realize that for as much LOVE as we send into the world, we often receive a return on that love that fills us ten fold.

One of the other goals I hit hard in 2015 was Refined + Rugged. I didn’t begin my blog until February (in keeping with surveying my field of life and looking at what I wanted and needed). I am so pleased with this little space of the internet. I can’t believe how far it has come!

I remember the beginning when every step seemed agonizing due to my low level of Information Technology knowledge. I still have a LONG way to go in terms of making this site more interactive, user friendly, and adding in some of those fancy widgets I’ve always dreamed of using (like a little bottom bar of my shopping picks, etc.).

But I am not sitting idle. I am working out kinks here and there every day. I am producing better and better content, working on my photography skills (that might take a class!!!), and hopefully continuing to refine my writing and my voice here on this page I call my own.

Though the page is mine, it would be little more than a grainy closet log, boring travel diary, personal recipe reminder, and staid workout recorder without my husband. My husband takes nearly all of the style photos for Refined + Rugged, and he continually inspires and supports me in this endeavor.

This page also wouldn’t be anything without YOU! Thank you for the support, care, enthusiasm, interest, conversation, positive comments, and encouragement. It means the WORLD! I am so grateful for YOU my friends and readers for your engagement and involvement.

In this past week-and-a-half as the New Year has begun I have written down a couple of personal goals:

Yes to LOVE, Yes to Speaking Kindly

No to SHOPPING until March

Yes to Gratitude, and Yes to Letter Writing

No to Eating Out

Yes to continuing in Family Dinner, and Yes to Moderation in Treats

Yes to Working Out and Biking and Being Active Daily

Yes to tackling an understanding of Budgeting and Personal Finance

Yes to Writing and Creating and Blogging with purpose

There you have it. In as streamlined a way as I can state it for now. The great thing about resolutions and goals is that there is no reason you cannot morph and change them as you see fit, as you journey further in to your new year.

Do you all make goals and resolutions each year? If so, why? If not, why not? If so, how have you seen progress, success, or improvement in yourself in the areas you’ve resolved to improve?

I hope you go roaring into Monday like you mean it! Whether you have personal goals to tackle or not, I hop you feel loved, enlightened, and uplifted! Let’s do this!!!

XX, Megan