Flashback Friday: A Collection From Old Blogs

Two Meggans, constantly at war with one another

A wise man once told me that there are two different Meggans co-existing in my body and they're constantly conflicting: polite, shy, conservative Meggan and naughty, bold, wild Meggan.

Polite, shy, conservative Meggan tucks her napkin neatly when she's eating and accepts compliments graciously. She doesn't know when someone's flirting with her, and keeps her responses to scandalous questions respectable and mysterious. She takes care when grooming and dressing, she watches out for everyone around her. She maintains a meticulous study and training schedule so that she can get good times on races and good grades on papers. She's a voter, a writer, a neatnik and a planet-lover. She's been called emo. She needs, loves and adores her friends.

Then there's bold, naughty, wild Meggan. She is frequently inappropriate and obnoxious. She capitalizes on her looks, blurts out her thoughts even when not a little tipsy, and watches out for herself at the expense of everyone else. She's been called cold and logical - multiple times - and she's most likely to be caught swilling vodka at a concert, wearing a short skirt and high heels, and riding a motorcycle. She can outdrink, outcuss, and outflirt anyone - and she's no tafraid to talk cars or shoot guns. She'd gladly turn in a paper late if it allows her more time to sleep or see friends. She is painfully independent.

I don't see why both Meggans can't coexist peacefully. The entire human race struggles with a dichotomous spirit: we want so badly to be everything we'resupposed to be, but it doesn't always happen. The real Meggan is a fair combination of Meggan 1 and Meggan 2. I can't not have a few too many drinks every now and then, just as I can't go more than a few days without a run or abike ride. The secret is finding the balance.

Perhaps that's why it's difficult for me to believe that the ideal mate forme could ever exist. Would he fall in love with wild Meggan and then be dissapointed when simple, sweet Meggan wanted to stay in, do laundry and homework on a Saturday night? Or would he adore schoolteacher Meggan in her conservative sweater and glasses, but be petrified by the self-assured swagger of bold Meggan in her short skirt? Neither would work - nourish one Meggan and reject the other at the expense of the whole.

Or maybe I just haven't fallen in love with the whole Meggan myself.

So here I am, pounding down the pavement well before daylight, relishing the solitude and determination, all the while feeling the familiar pang of uncertainty and the churning of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. Maybe if I just clear my mind, the answer will eventually appear.

-circa 2005/6

Flashback Friday: I Am My Own Atlas

I am my own Atlas

I finally made it back from the great abyss. I woke up from a seven-yearfluke, and it was yesterday. Shaking off the dust from the precipice . . . itcomes as no shock that nothing has changed.

Have I been running this long? Have the tears really spilled so violentlyfrom my eyes, which are sick with weeping?

I could have lived my life around our demise. For a while, I heard that youmight have tried to do the same. But, even beyond living anesthetized, I reallyneeded little help removing myself from the wreckage. And now, after all thistime, the only thing of consequence I see is everything. Of coldness, I can beaccused . . . of deceit, never . . . of transparency, always.

I am my own Atlas. The Aristotelian unmoved mover. The world that I liftedfrom my shoulders is my world, not the world in sum. The world in sum is toopreoccupied with their own shoulders to consider mine. The sun that spinsinside my little universe will continue to spin. And, within my world, I willcontinue to have many different adventures. I will be a sage in some countries,an ingénue in others. Another heart may beat with mine, but mine is mine alone.Singularity never daunted me

-circa 2007

Flashback Friday: A Collection From Old Blogs

And so it is . . .

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky . . .

-Damien Rice, The Blower's Daughter


My heart is so full . . . I sometimes awake at night to find it fervently pounding my chest, a deranged prisoner. At 1 a.m., my eyes fly open. There's a cat purring, kneading me. I push him away and tiptoe to the bathroom. My skin tingles - the AC is low - my thick comforter, pillows and purring furry water bottles have numbed me to the faux frigidness - and the sound of my feet on the floor is eerie, softly echoing . . .

A fiery ball of anguish settles deep in the pit of - where? My stomach? My chest, along with my crazy heart? It boils there, pulsing, molten, insufferable. How many times are you going to set yourself up like this? How many chances can you take? How many risks? You can rest assured that, during my waking hours, I do not argue with my ambition, motivation, capacity to freefall, propensity to love, or any number of tendencies that are pulling away my skin from the inside. Yet in this cold, dark space, where no one sees or knows me, I ask. I continue to ask. And I am repeatedly unable to answer.

As I once wrote, long ago: I am, above all things, a restless soul. I am not the one who chose the easy path. I am not the one who settled for simplicity. I am the one who saw what could be and not what was. I was not unaware of the potential sorrow in my choice. And yet it was a choice I made. A choice I made because I was determined to live wildly, blindly, recklessly in the moment. Perhaps I will never know why I always make the choice that brings greater joy - the same choice that usually promises the least longevity. Maybe I am all too aware of my own fragility. I wash my hands, return to bed, unable to find rest. Even my sound machine and sleep mask fail to comfort me. My heart is too full. My heart is too empty.

-circa 2006