"What You Call Love..." - Guster

What I believe: Love is an automatic emotion.

What else I believe: Being in love is a choice.

I’m far from a wise, old owl, but I have been around long enough to have made this distinction for my life.

I used to think – like most giggly girls who have watched too many sappy movies – that one fell into being in love when one met The Right Man.

Three failed relationships and a long string of maybes later, and I realized how false that is, at least for me in my life.

There are quite a few people currently in my life that I love, and love dearly. Some friendships that I’ve developed are crazy to me, mostly because our personalities are so different, but I love these friendships even more because I learn so much from them.

In these cases, while I might have chosen to start the friendship or pursue their friendship, I never made a conscious decision to love them.

I can think of one friendship I have in particular where I clearly remember saying to myself, “I want to pursue this person. It will take effort because we are worlds different, but I have a feeling this will be worthwhile.”

A few months later, after establishing and building a solid friendship, I remember looking at this person one night and saying to myself, “I love this person. I truly, humbly love this individual in front of me. How did that happen?”

There have been times along the way in this friendship where this person has acted in a way that pushes my buttons, or they have taken a path I question, but that has not lessened my genuine love for them.

Maybe my like for them, but not my love.

The funny thin is, it would take a tremendous amount of effort for me to stop loving them, if I ever could.

I used to be extremely close friends with a particular individual when I was in college, and I held a ridiculous amount of love for them. Probably too much.

Then life happened, things changed, emotions shifted, and over the span of time, we lost the friendship.

I spent a good while being devastated, trying to win the friendship back. Then I spent a time being angry, so, so angry. Then I spent a good long chunk of time just being apathetic.

Not that long ago, I ran into this person again, after having not seen them for several years. It did not go as I hoped, and I was left feeling bitter and dumb.

I spent awhile this way, trying not to think of this person because I couldn’t shake the bitterness.

A few weeks ago, I saw this person again. I avoided conversing with them because there was nothing left for either of us to say, and I knew that. But the moment I made eye contact with them, the bitterness welled up in me like vomit, and for a few moments, I thought I really was going to be sick.

It hit me hard why: I still loved this person. After months of sadness and anger and years of apathy, I still had love for them. And probably always will.

I can’t control love. At least not easily.

But go back to that second truth for me: Being in love, romantic love, is a choice. At least I have made it so for me.

For me, I have decided to make this truth because it is how I differentiate.

I have been self-conscious around members of the opposite gender for a few years. I know that I show I care about you through touch (hugs, pats, close proximity, et cetera) and I know how that can look. I also know that when I enjoy your company, I am jealous for it and crave it. This is true in my relationships with boys and girls, but rarely have I ever had a girl take this in the wrong way.

I love my guy friends. And because I consider the guy I am currently dating as a friend – as well as something more – I love him, too. Just like the guys I love that I do not See Romantically.

What then is the difference?

If I cannot help but love him because he is my friend and I automatically love all my friends, what is special about our relationship?

If I were one day to get married to someone, how would my love for my husband be different? Do I just say that I love my husband more than others?

I don’t do well with levels. I am too passionate for that.

I have this attribute that is akin to addictive personality: I passionately, hardcore love things. And then when I don’t, I just don’t. I don’t know how to do middle ground.

So I can’t just say I love something, someone, more. I have to have another love for them in order for it to be different.

I will have to choose to have a second love for my spouse.

I firmly believe that in order for me to ever have a healthy marriage, several things must occur in my mind and heart:

I. I have a firm and steady friendship with him so that I always love him, even when he drives me bonkers.

II. I choose to be in love with him every single morning when I wake up. I choose to be with him – physically, emotionally, mentally – every single day, and no one else.

III. I choose to let him love and be in love with me.

Funny how I’m pretty sure something’s true in my life, and then I write it out and realize how one hundred percent true it really is. 

"I miss your faces. They remind me of God." - M. Night Shyamalan

What I’m realizing: You can learn to love yourself when you put your mind to it.

This might sound cocky, but it’s something I’ve learned over the past few years. Not to be dramatic or gain pity, but it’s been a rough few years for me. But I feel like one reason it’s been rough is because I needed to go through the process of learning to both love and like myself.

I learned how to date myself about two years ago. I learned how to take myself out and treat myself nice. I learned that it’s good to buy yourself popcorn at a movie you took yourself to. I learned that it’s good to pamper yourself sometimes, to do things you like to do just because you like them and you want to be nice to yourself.

I learned how to treat myself nice, but I also learned how to push myself in the healthiest of senses. I learned how to exercise properly, how to listen to my body, how to acknowledge and be gentle with my body when it’s telling me it’s tired. I learned what foods my body likes and doesn’t like. I learned when it’s okay to indulge and when it’s good to listen to my body’s dietary needs.

I learned how to be my own friend; first out of necessity because of the nature of my life at one point, and then because I actually kind of liked hanging out with myself. I wasn’t perfect, I never pretended to be to myself, but I accepted my flaws and chose to work on the ones I could instead of punishing myself for them.

Here’s why I’m bringing this up: I know how to love myself. What I don’t know is how to let other people love me.

I accepted me because I had to. I am stuck with me, so I decided to learn to love myself.

No one else is stuck with me. So what’s their excuse for loving me? Why should they stick around if they don't have to?

This sounds horribly, horribly dramatic, but it’s the brutal honesty of where I’m at right now. And if nothing else, I make my blog honest.

Over the past year, I went from having about three friends in the whole world to having to keep a schedule book so I wouldn’t overbook myself with dinners and such with friends to then adding on the luxury of meeting a man who wants to spend a whole lot of time getting to know me and love on me.

I say this not to be cocky, but to show how my life has changed.

I definitely don’t have any kind of sage wisdom or hallmark moment to show that I am handling these changes beautifully. If anything it is taking enormous amounts of guts and courage just to say that having people love and like me is really hard for me at the moment.

I struggle with this so much internally and now wanted to share a little externally because I know that getting things out in public writing is how I have learned to cope and deal with things.

So.

Hi, my name is Meagan, and I have trouble accepting that people want to love me.

Please do not, I beg of you, misread this: This is not so that people will go, “Aww, she needs a hug. And we need to be extra careful around her and show her that yes we do love her.”

No.

I say it to alert you that I want to accept your love, and in doing so, be vulnerable with you.

You have found something inside of me that you think is worthy of your love and friendship, and instead of shying away from that, I want to be abundantly thankful and accepting of that love and friendship, even though it is incredibly hard for me. I want to tell you in writing that I do not take your kindness of love and acceptance for granted, nor do I take it as a, “Oh yeah, of course they love me. I’m awesome.”

When someone shows me love or kindness – especially those of you who have stuck with me through thick, thin, moodiness, uncommunicativeness, and just plain weirdness – it shows me God.

There’s a line in one of my favourite movies that has stuck with me for years: “I miss your faces. They remind me of God.”

This is how I feel about anyone who shows me love and friendship. You bring me closer to God through you showing me love that I know comes from Him. Without Him, we wouldn’t know how to properly love.

I know this last fact because I have been loved with love that is His and love that is not from Him. And the love that is not from Him has done so much damage to me in the end. But the love of His children that is shown to me?

That love has changed me and is changing me and will change me from the inside out, always for the better, even when it hurts a little.

Hi, my name is Meagan, and while I might have trouble accepting your love, I am so overwhelmingly thankful for it.

My Favourite Writing Exercise: 'This Depression Crap'

[One time I had this really great class with this really great professor, and she made us to do this amazing writing exercise where she put on a song and we just started writing whatever the song made us feel, and then she would change the song to something completely different and we could continue writing the same story, just change the next part we wrote based on this new song, and so on and so forth until we had written for four or five different songs.
It was the greatest writing exercise I think I've ever done, and will still do it from time to time when I don't know what to write.
So I did this yesterday. What came out was completely weird, but I am making myself blog at least three times this week, so the weirdness gets posted.
The songs were picked completely at random, in the following order, and I only played a minute and a half of each, just so you can understand why I wrote each bit of weirdness:
I. Wonderland - Taylor Swift
II. Tuning Out... - Bastille
III. This random French song I have by Alan Rickman
IV. Girl On Fire - Alicia Keys
V. Alabama - John Coltrane
VI. Sudden Throw - Olafur Arnalds
Also, for a little more context, I decided before I played the first song to write about a man who was in the hospital because of a failed suicide attempt, and for a living, he writes smut books. I titled it 'This Depression Crap'. That might give you a little more context.]

“Don’t you flash those green eyes at me.”

I smiled up at him. He always knew the right thing to say.

He used to tell me that my eyes changed from blue to green when I cried. Which never made sense to me seeing as how my eyes were grey.

I knew better than to argue with him though.

I looked down as he picked up my hand in his and brought it to his lips, his own eyes shut tight, a small tear escaping down his cheek.

He had told me awhile ago that he wasn’t good at funerals, that he always cried when he saw the people who loved the dead crying. I always wondered if this was true, but I guess I didn’t have to worry about wondering anymore.

“She died far too soon,” Gabby’s husband was saying.

Nope.

I can’t write sappy sad.

I need to just keep to what I know: Smut books written for lonely, middle-aged women who go out for fun and get a new cat.

I’m sitting in a hospital bed, my wrists wrapped tightly even though the bleeding stopped yesterday.

Note to self, next time I try to kill myself this way, remember which way you’re supposed to slit your wrists.

This one male nurse who’s been hanging out in my room a lot told me I should try to write something different.

“Different like what?” I asked, scraping my spoon against the bottom of the pudding cup. Those things just never last long enough.

He sighed dramatically, then started singing in French.

I sat my spoon down and stared at him. I had known him for a few months now; he and I had developed a weird sort of friendship over the past few times I’d been in the hospital for failed suicide attempts.

But I never knew he could sing, let alone sing in French.

When he was done, he stood up dramatically, started walking out of the room, then turned his head back to me and said, “Use that as your inspiration.”

So I got out my computer and started writing. I got as far as some girl named Gabby’s funeral before I forgot what it was I was writing. Forgot, or just didn’t care anymore.

I pushed the button for the nurses, hoping I could sweet talk one of them into sneaking me another pudding.

A nurse I had never seen before with bright red hair came in, staring at her clipboard, not even looking up at me.

She had that kind of hair where you know it’s dyed because no one has hair like that. She had probably cut it herself too, I guessed from the jagged edges and odd angle some of the front layers stuck out.

“Let me guess,” she said, finally looking up. “Another pudding?”

“Are you my soulmate?” I said, winking dramatically. I always tried to be overdramatic and ridiculous when I flirted with the nurses; I knew full well no nurse was going to actually go out with one of their suicidal patients. Never hurts to try, I told myself.

She smiled.

None of the other nurses ever smiled at me.

Maybe that’s all I need, I thought to myself. A little humanity. A smile or two. Maybe that would just make all this depression crap melt.

She pulled out two spoons from her pocket. “The condition to you getting this is that I get to share. And then when I leave, you write me a scene without any sex.”

“Throw one of the spoons away and share just one spoon with me and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

She pulled up the visitor chair as close to the bed as possible, opened the pudding, and took the first bite before handing me the spoon.

“They’re releasing you tonight, you know,” she said offhandedly. “I think they don’t know what to do with you.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” I said, closing my eyes and enjoying every moment of that pudding.

I opened my eyes to see her staring at me with an angry look on her face. 

“You know, I’m probably never going to see you again. So I’m going to go ahead and say this. What do you actually think in your head when you try to kill yourself? They told me this is the sixth time they’ve seen you here. They say when you leave they know they’ll probably see you again because you refuse to get help with your depression. What are you so ashamed of?”

Measuring In Songs: A Running Love Story

One more song.

I can do that.

I have to measure running in songs.

I can't make myself run for 30 minutes, but I can make myself run for eight songs.

Tonight, I bumped that up to nine songs.

I started running for the same reason a lot of people I know or have heard of started running: I hated my life.

I've been running for two years. I run a 15-minute mile on a good day, I definitely don't run every day, and I've never run any kind of race in these two years.

I run for me. Like I hope all runners do.

It takes me a good ten minutes to get into The Running Mode once I start running.

I can talk myself into going for a run pretty easily. I've noticed it's ridiculously easy to force guilt on myself and run.

Not guilt.

That sounds wrong and evil, and running is far from wrong and evil.

Motivation.

Funny how those two things get mixed up sometimes.

Tonight I spent more money than I had planned while shopping with a wonderful new friend, so I used that as my motivation.

And it worked; I got that extra song in.

But those first ten minutes.

God gets His ear yelled off during those first ten minutes.

"I will die, God. I will die. Get ready for me to meet You in person in Heaven."

"I don't know how to do this. Body, why are you weird? God, why did you make my body weird? It's your fault I'm not an Olympic runner, God."

"I want to do this I want to do this I want to do this, God, do I really want to do this?"

"My side! Oh God, my side! Why does it feel like the side of my stomach is punching me in the face?!"

Once those first ten minutes are over, I love the rest of my run.

I try not to plan out what will happen while I run. I don't run to think about anything, I make sure of that.  

I don't exactly try to clear my head, but I just let it run free.

There are only two times I let my mind run free like this: In the shower, and while running.

It's amazing to me the things my mind can come up with when it's let free.

I've come up with some of my most favourite Fictional Shorts while running.

I've thought some of my deepest thoughts, I've made some of the toughest decisions I've ever made, I've thought about the future in both broad and close vision, I've been morbid in the best ways possible, I've been full of joy and let that spill over while running through running just a tad bit faster that lap.

I'll never be a very good runner. I doubt I'll ever get past a 14 minute mile (the fastest I've ever run). I doubt I'll ever run 15 miles at once - I usually aim for 2 miles per run, 3 when I'm feeling extra frisky. Anyone who sees me run will probably always think, "Is that girl's body supposed to be doing that?"

But good Gatsby, I'll keep running.

And breathing very, very heavily while limping along.

Run Of The Mill(ie)

[Because I feel the need to show proof I wrote something other than fan fiction or emails.]

Run Of The Mill(ie)

It was the dress that made him notice her for the first time, really notice her.

It wasn’t like Adam had never noticed Millie before.

She had been in the back of his mind since the first day she showed up, a broken, scared mess of a girl, too nervous and jumpy to even sit still for two minutes together.

He had seen her like he saw most all the other girls in the compound: Not worth his serious time.

Adam was the first to admit he was susceptible to a pretty girl. He had had more than his fair share of flings with a handful of girls in the compound, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit that he would probably have even more. There wasn’t a whole lot of good in their world these days, so in his mind, spending a few stolen moments or an occasional night with a girl he thought he could guess her name seemed all right.

And then Millie.

He  subconsciously left her alone for the first week or so she was at the compound, as if giving her a chance to settle in before figuring out if she was easy prey for him or not. He just figured she was typical, ready to be seduced, or at the very least susceptible if he turned on the charm and manliness.

He was almost pleasantly surprised to find that she was a lot stronger than that.

Adam wasn’t cocky, not if you got down to it. He had a reputation for being a bit sleazy, for a smile that could melt hearts in a matter of seconds, but he only turned it on when he knew a girl was interested. He had learned the look when a girl at the compound needed an escape, when he could get what he wanted. If he didn’t see the look, he backed away. Adam was smart enough to only go after the girls who wanted him back.

So when he didn’t see the look in Millie, when he saw instead a stable, tenacious woman who had toughened herself up and knew herself well enough to save herself, he didn’t give her a line or a sensual smile. He was proud of her, respect in his eyes when he saw her.

But the more he watched her, the more proud he became of her, the more he felt something inside for her. He didn’t know what to call it, so he tried to always just shrug it off when it hit him.

When he saw her in that dress, he couldn’t just shrug it off.

Adam couldn’t remember if he had ever seen her in a dress before, besides the tattered, mud-caked one she had on the day she arrived that they made her burn. He knew they had some dresses and skirts they offered girls when they first arrived, but Millie had asked for pants only.

He wasn’t sure if she had just asked for this dress for the festival or what the reason for the dress was, but he didn’t care.

She was gorgeous.

Adam couldn’t have told anyone later what colour the dress was or what the pattern was, or even how long or short it was on her frame. He wouldn’t have been able to say if her hair was down or up, if she had put extra care into her general appearance. Those details didn’t hit him.

What hit him was the way she wore the dress, the way she seemed to know that it made her beautiful, the way she wore that beauty with such grace and dignity. She knew in that moment that she was special, and that look was not lost on anyone, least of all Adam.

He couldn’t stop staring at her at the festival.

They hadn’t talked much before, really. After he knew she wouldn’t fall for him, he never went out of his way to be nice to her or try to hold conversations with her. She occasionally ended up in the same work group as he, and they worked well together and conversed that way, but that was it.

But at the festival, all he wanted to do was be near her and listen to her talk.

“Did you need to ask me something?”

Adam snapped to attention at her words. She was standing just a few feet away from him, a grin he didn’t recognize on her face. He blushed, realizing he hadn’t been very coy about following her around for the past half hour.

“Um.”

“It’s Adam, right?”

There was that grin again. Adam wondered if it was intended to calm him into forming a sentence. It was doing the exact opposite.

“I just, um. I like your dress.”

Adam closed his eyes as he heard the words come out of his mouth.

He had always prided himself on his smoothness with girls, the way he could get what he wanted with a flash of his smile and a few rehearsed words.

But then again, this wasn’t a girl. This was Millie.

“Thank you,” she said, still grinning, not seeming at all phased by his clumsiness. “I’ve never been to a festival before. It felt like it needed something special. I like your suspenders.”

Adam stretched himself up a little bit taller and smiled, feeling a little calmer. He could get used to compliments from her.

“I want to try this cider I’ve been hearing about for days,” Millie said, her eyes scanning for the table with the drink.

“Want to sit and have some together?”

Millie’s focus immediately went back to Adam at his words. She didn’t smile at first, just stared at him, then swallowed.

Adam knew this look. He knew she was trying to decide something important about him, and he knew better than to look away when she was deciding. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then met her gaze.

They stood just looking at each other for a few seconds, Adam willing himself to not look away, to somehow prove to her that he could be worth it if she gave him the chance, that he would try with all his might to not disappoint her.

A smile slowly began on her face, starting first in her eyes, and then spreading to her lips.

“I’d like that,” she said softly, still looking at him.

Adam breathed a sigh of relief. “I would too.”

They both turned to walk towards the table, not saying anything. Adam reached over and silently took her hand in his as they walked.

He let go when they got to the table, Millie gesturing with her head towards a spot on the ground in the shade before walking over and sitting down. Adam walked over a moment later, handing her a glass of cider and sitting down next to her, his back against the tree, his leg barely touching hers.

“Could you, um,” Millie started, then stopped. “Before. That was nice.”

Adam didn’t say a word as he reached over and took her hand in his again.