Blog - Page 6 of 10 - Megan Hallier

The painful realisation that growing up means saying goodbye

There is this feeling I get.

A dull ache in the pit of my stomach. A tug on my heartstrings. A bittersweet knowing that what once was, can never be again.

I feel it as I’m watching my brother’s face grow smaller in the rearview mirror.

I feel it as I wave wildly out the car window to match my parents equally enthusiastic waves.

I feel it in the hugs, the kisses, and the jokes shared between friends I’ve collected through the years.

It’s the ever-present, always crushing reality of goodbyes.

The fact that no matter what we try to do, we cannot slow down time. We cannot prevent our forward momentum. We are prisoners of time, captive to its sweeping clutches.

And so the ache widens. Numbing my fingertips and prickling tears to my eyes.

But I inhale a little sharper and wipe swiftly at my eyes, because I know this is a feeling I must become familiar with, an ache I must learn to corral.

I hate these sudden realizations that startle us in adulthood.

I had such sweet hopes and a rosy view of what it would be like to grow up and like plunging into icy water, the reality has been shocking to the system.

How could I have known the tears of homesickness that would pour down my cheeks the first night I slept in my dorm room?

How could I have foreseen the way I would miss the ordinary, Saturday morning grocery shopping with mum or standing beside the blazing fireplace in winter with my dad?

How could I have predicted that I would one day become best friends with my vexatious brother and that leaving him would feel like a kick to my gut?

But I know now the truth of adulthood. That goodbyes are endless. That death, loss and grief are inescapable. That loving anything or anyone will eventually leave you aching.

The older we get, the more pieces of ourselves we leave scattered in different places.

A piece curled up in our bedroom back home. A piece with our college roommate, a piece with the friends we met at church, a piece with our first boyfriends and a piece with the ones after that.

And even though I’m moving back home, even though I’m going to be closer to my parents, even though this is what I want, I feel so very sad.

I feels as though I keep moving to new places, digging my roots down and then once again I find myself being torn apart as I am are forced to say goodbye.

It seems that we are never really whole again. We will always be scattered in the places and people who shaped us.

Wherever we go, we leave loved ones behind.

It’s beautiful and tragic.

What a treasure it is to have friends spread out across the world like lighthouses. Beacons of familiarity and safety on our travels abroad.

How happy it makes me to find kindred spirits in my workplace. To feel accepted and find belonging among my colleagues.

And how lovely it is to find friends who feel like family, who become your brothers and sisters, who know and love you for who you are.

I am lucky to be so loved. I am lucky to love so much.

But that doesn’t make the goodbyes any easier.

That doesn’t soften my loss or comfort me in my loneliness.

growing up, moving on, change, adulthood friendships, making friends as an adult, relationships, saying goodbye,

The painful truth is that growing up means saying goodbye.

In this life we will always be shifting through seasons. We will always be in transition. People will always be coming and going; making their mark and subtly changing us.

Somehow, I think I’m getting better at saying goodbye.

Despite the tightness in my chest and the tears flooding the corners of my eyes.

I’ve realised that sometimes a goodbye is necessary for us to grow and evolve as people.

I think I have learnt to hold things and people more loosely than I used to. Not because I’m afraid of getting hurt, but because I know that some people aren’t meant to be in our lives forever.

I used to cling to friendships and potential love interests like they were lifesavers keeping me afloat.

I don’t feel that way anymore. I can do this on my own. I can keep floating without them.

I’m not afraid of the goodbye because I know there will be plenty of hellos to come. Friendships won’t be the same and that stings but I know I won’t be alone.

Relationships don’t define me because I am whole regardless of whether I am the other half of a couple or not.

But for those who are permanent fixtures in our lives, who we put down on our emergency contact list and who own a spare key to our house…

It’s never really goodbye anyway. It’s see you soon or see you later.

I am cheered by the fact our family and long time friends will never really fade into a blurry memory or become lost in the pile of unread mail.

For there are certain people you just never really say goodbye to. Despite years and distance, there is something that always draws you back. A connection that cannot be broken.

So I’m holding tightly to that with every last hug and wave out the car window. The ones who matter most of all aren’t disappearing forever.

It’s not goodbye…it’s see you soon or see you later.

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In Building relationships

When broken people try to build relationships

I’ve been thinking recently about the cost of relationships.

Being in a relationship, be it romantic, friendly, forced by blood relation or other, is costly. People come into our lives and leave muddy footprints all over them.

Relationships require so much patience, compassion and forgiveness. Sometimes it feels too hard. Too costly. Too much to ask.

For example, I like to take good care of my things. I place a great deal of value in my possessions and so I tend to treat all of them with my utmost respect.

However, I am learning that other people do not take the same precautions with their own possessions nor those of anyone else for that matter.

I came to realize this the hard way in my first flatting experience.

Somehow I ended up flatting with three loud, rambunctious, messy boys.

I never thought I would flat with boys at all, let alone three at once, but God has such a great sense of humour that way.

So I would often find myself stumbling into wrestling matches on the living room floor, piggy-back rides in the kitchen and tea box tower construction in the pantry.

And as you can imagine, such chaos often left casualties. Fortunately, nay miraculously, none of us were ever harmed, but the same cannot be said for our flat, furniture and crockery.

Cups were chipped, once white tea towels became grey and splotchy, spatulas were singed on hot frying pans and beautiful china bowls were cracked irreparably.

There was this one bowl I was particularly fond of because it was on the clearance shelf at the kitchenware store.

It was white with this delicate turquoise pattern etched all around it. I fell in love the minute I laid eyes on this bowl and I knew I had to buy it.

If I had a china cabinet I would have kept it nicely tucked away in there because it was almost too beautiful to be used.

One day I came home and found my precious bowl with a big, ugly chip in its rim.

And not only that, but inching from the chip right through the middle of the bowl was a hairline crack which I knew spelled disaster.

It broke my heart.

I knew I shouldn’t have trusted those careless boys with my beautiful bowl. This is why we can’t have nice things. Because people are sloppy and careless and incredibly clumsy.

If we let them use our fine china it will get chipped, it’s only a matter of time.

I stormed around the flat for a little bit and muttered to myself about how careless boys are and how I should teach them a lesson about breaking other peoples precious belongings.

And I was getting all puffed up and ready to fight until I realized how melodramatic and absurd I was being.

It was a bowl for goodness sake. It was no antique, it wasn’t a heirloom, it wasn’t given to me by someone very special.

It probably cost less than 15 dollars. It had no sentimental or monetary value and yet I felt so outraged that someone had broken something that belonged to me.

It’s a joy to have nice things. It just makes sense that you would look after the things which you have spent your hard earned money on.

But it becomes a problem when we value our things more than people.

So this brings me back to the cost of relationships. The fact that sharing my life, my home and my space with other people means that things won’t ever be the same.

They’ll leave their fingerprints all over my wineglasses. Their problems cluttering up my quiet Friday evening. Their brokenness chipping a hairline crack of disappointment and hurt throughout the smooth crockery of our relationship.

But I don’t want to be the kind of person who is so caught up in bubble-wrapping her china bowls that she misses out on communing with friends.

I don’t want to become obsessed with collecting things that I lose the chance to build a community that depends on sharing.

Too often I think we let our pride, our egos and our desire for perfection to get in the way of real connection. True intimacy. Deep relationship.

But I want to learn how to let people in.

I want to love others. I want to drink from chipped cups and wear my best friends socks and lend someone my sweater when it gets cold.

I want to trade lemons from your tree for basil from my garden. I want to swap chocolate chip cookie recipes and your mom’s famous potato salad recipe.

I want to be the kind of person who values people, not things.

And that isn’t an easy thing for me to do. Because people with my personality type tend to want to keep things to them self. We so badly want to be different, unique and important and it can feel like allowing people to see all of us will spoil that.

I’m deeply afraid that someone will copy me and then I won’t be so special anymore.

But I’m learning that this is one of the costs of relationships. The fact that someone might copy us or abandon us or hurt us in ways we never saw coming.

It is so messy and risky and completely gut-wrenching at times, but it is what we were made for after all.

To love and be loved. To share and be seen. To lean on and lead on one another.

So come on over and use my best china because life is for living, not just for looking at.

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In Seeking encouragement

Doing something brave even when it scares you

I’ve been feeling this pressure welling up inside of me for months. Like the gentle expansion of a balloon as air is forced into it, stretching and stretching until eventually, it bursts.

The stress has been pressing in on me from all sides.

I have felt trapped. Unable to move because every option seems too heavy, too messy or too complicated to pursue.

In all honesty, my job has been making me miserable and all this time I’ve been wrestling with this constant dissatisfaction.

Because serving people all day long is exhausting. Because waking up at 5am every day is grueling. Because getting told off and feeling on edge all the time is demeaning.

And truthfully, I believe I deserve better.

But I’ve been too scared to walk away. Because quitting means stepping into the unknown, a future without the security of a job, without a clear plan, without a clue what to do next.

Leaving means giving up a regular paycheck and my independence.

So I have stayed.

I’ve pushed through the negative thoughts and tried to focus on the positive. I’ve thought of tiny, little ways to make each day better. I’ve started going to bed early so the mornings aren’t quite as painful.

And yet, I still feel the pressure. I still feel the dissatisfaction. I still feel myself yearning for something more.

Happiness, excitement and creativity are calling out me. Begging me to do the brave thing. Quickening my heart and filling my head with dreams that I long to make come true.

Finally, after months of this internal battle, I decided to quit my job.

Now I feel sick. Now I feel free. Now I feel I am finally being true to myself.

There have been so many moments this year where I have felt that queasy, is-this-the-right-thing-or-a-terrible-mistake feeling.

So many times I’ve doubted myself, grappled with the uncertainty and clung to the familiar instead of choosing the brave thing.

I don’t blame myself.

Doing the brave thing is hard. Going out on a limb is terrifying. Stepping into the unknown takes so much courage.

We get these rare moments every now and then where we can choose to take the easy route or do the brave thing.

Should we date that guy? Should we take that job? Should we move to a new city? Should we go back and study?

To me it feels a lot like rock climbing. You don’t really know which of the oddly-shaped hand holds to grab until you let go of the last one and stretch your arm up to grab the next one.

For a split second you are dangling in mid-air, gripping nothing, with only your sheer focus and determination driving you forwards.

Sometimes you grab the wrong handhold. One of those small, knobbly ones that makes your sweaty hands slip right off.

But other times you are lucky enough to reach for one with a proper indentation, one that makes pulling yourself up easy.

Sometimes being brave is just about doing the next right thing. Sitting still long enough to recognize your wants and needs.

The brave thing might be the opposite of what everyone else says you should do. It might make you unpopular. It might take everything you’ve got.

But the brave thing is worth it.

A little over five months ago I said another scary yes and started dating a guy who’s ended up becoming my best friend.

Every part of me wanted to keep my tattered little heart locked up safe where no guy could ever trample on it again but instead I chose to share it with him. I chose to open up and give love another chance.

It turns out this was the best yes I’ve said in a long time.

So here I am again doing the brave thing even though it scares me.

Reaching out for the next handhold, unsure whether it will be able to support me. Going out on a limb because I know life is full of surprises if we are willing to take a chance.

We can fool ourselves into believing that it is only special people who do incredible things. That only very few, lucky people are truly happy. But I think that’s wrong.

The truly happy people, the ones who have done and are doing amazing things are the ones who are willing to do the brave things.

They aren’t any different to you and me. They just pushed past the fear and said yes anyway. They just bottled away enough courage to leap forwards.

They just believed in themselves enough to think it might just be worth a try.

And that’s what you need to do today.

Believe in yourself and do the brave thing, even (especially) if it scares you.

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In Living intentionally

When wishing for the weekend becomes a way of life

Wednesdays are the hardest day of the week for me. Mondays tend to get a bad rap but I am not convinced they are really so bad.

On Monday I feel refreshed after having two days off. I usually have had more than eight hours sleep the night before, my feet aren’t aching from being stood on all day and most often, I still have the enthusiasm to pack a decent lunch.

But come Wednesday, I’ve got two days worth of dishes piling up in the sink, clothes strewn all over the floor and I can hardly keep my eyes open when I first wake up.

It takes every ounce of willpower I have to muster the strength to get out of bed.

On Wednesdays I always end up questioning what I am doing with my life. I am always especially critical of myself. And I always find myself beginning to long for the weekend.

That’s the way it goes.

We spend the weekdays longing for the weekend and we spend the weekend wishing the weekdays wouldn’t come too soon.

In my family we have a special term for that melancholy, Sunday night feeling. ‘Sundaytitis’ was the simultaneous feeling of contentment from a weekend of rest and sadness knowing that tomorrow work would begin again.

The truth is, I spend 5/7 days each week wishing my life away. Longing for the rest, joy and fullness I feel on the weekend.

But I don’t just do this with weekdays and Wednesdays either, I’m guilty of doing it with whole seasons of my life.

I constantly find myself wishing I could jump past the boring, stressful and painful parts of life and skip to the good bits. I want to fast forward. I want every day to feel like the weekend, like the first day of summer, like the beginning of a holiday.

Some days I feel the tears of frustration well up in my eyes because the reality is, we can’t fast forward. There is no skipping to the highlights.

We can’t avoid the Wednesdays, the crappy days and the just-plain-unfair-for-no-particular-reason days.

To get enjoy all of the wonderful times we must live through the bleak times as well.

Life is this infuriating balance of dull and beautiful, dark and light, work and rest. We need the contrast for completeness. We need the variety to keep up our momentum.

I feel this becomes apparently clear as the days are getting longer and the air is getting warmer.

Summer is romancing us with lavish sunshine and an abundance of blooms. It’s sweet and makes my soul happy but I know eventually I will tire of the relentless heat.

Soon the humidity will feel overwhelming and once again I’ll be longing for the coolness of winter.

We think winter is boring and cold. We are stuck inside and it gets dark far too early and getting out of bed is the worst torture known to man. But in reality, winter is a blessing.

A break from the play-filled summer months. A time for the leaves to die off and seeds to burrow down into the soil.

A necessary pause in the middle of the year to slow us down as we glide closer and closer to Christmas.

Wednesdays are the same. Smack bang in the middle. A chance to pause and catch our breaths.

Something my Granny always says is that getting old happens much faster than you could imagine. She often remarks that one day I’ll wake up and suddenly be her age wondering where my whole life went.

And every time she says this, I will smile and nod at her just like she did to her grandmother.

But I know she is right.

Time is no friend of the young.

I see the wrinkles appearing already. They start at the corner of your eyes, just when you smile and eventually the creases become permanent, etching outwards towards the tips of your ears.

Our time is so very precious. I don’t want to wish it away. I don’t want to get so caught up in longing for the next big thing that I miss what is right in front of me.

The wonder in every day. The delight in simply being alive. The gift of another day on this planet.

I want to do my best to make every day special. To make every day count. To feel I have participated in a worthy exchange; a day of my life for the laughter, love, and beauty shared.

This isn’t easy to do, given how hectic and complicated our lives get. I think it is a spiritual practice, something that takes discipline and a sense of gratitude.

An awareness of those elusive, divine moments that are sprinkled throughout every day. If we blink we might miss them, so we have to practice keeping our eyes and our hearts open and receptive to them.

Today might be dull. It might be dreary, rainy, slow or somber. But it is a day of your life that you will never get back.

So make it count. Search for the goodness, hope for more, keep gratitude at the centre of who you are.

Before you know it, you’ll be seventy five telling your grand daughter the very same thing.

P.S. If you are looking for a really excellent movie that focuses on the same idea as this post then check out ‘About Time.’ It’s one of my favourites!

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In Seeking encouragement

Feeling lost and finding your purpose

The dry season is the hardest.

When the ground is parched and cracks under foot.
When the grass withers beneath the incessant sun.
When the waves of heat ripple across the pavement all day long.

Faith is no struggle when the rain falls without prayer.
But when there are no clouds in sight, that’s when faith becomes more than a silent obligation.

The wilderness is a lonely place.
Dry and unforgiving.
Empty and deafeningly quiet.

The only place I know where being lost means finding yourself.

Do you ever feel as though as soon as one thing goes right, another falls apart?
It seems to be one of those rules of life.

A truth of adulthood.

We fix the broken tap and find a leak in the roof. It is almost impossible to stay on top of everything, all the time.

Lately I’ve found myself falling into a state of stress because I can’t decide what I want to do with my life.

I feel this rising panic in my chest because I don’t know where to place my feet like I’m constantly walking down the stairs and missing the last step.

I hate to be a cliche but it seems that is what I have become. The college graduate having an identity crisis…what’s new?

But to be completely honest, I feel totally lost.

Before this, everyone was always telling you who you are. And most of the time you are encouraged to fit in and be the same as everyone else.
You dress in a uniform, you take the subjects your parents think are best for you, you go to college and then suddenly…the voices stop.

You are on your own.

The silence is chilling. The blankness is unnerving.

The choices are all yours and you suddenly find yourself wishing for the comfort and familiarity of those loud voices you once despised.

For the first time in my life I have found myself becoming despondent.

There are too many options I could possibly choose and it leaves me feeling so exhausted that I choose nothing. I choose to remain stagnant.

I freeze up in fear of what might happen if I were to open one of the doors before me and step through it.

This despondency appears as a lack of inspiration. Words used to flow effortlessly from me. My fingers would caress the keyboard and my ideas would come to life before my eyes.
But now I struggle with that blinking cursor. It taunts me as I stare at the blankness of my screen.

An absence of words shows an absence of peace. I am restless. I am wallowing. I am floundering.

This is the wilderness.

The dry, empty, lost place. The space where we find ourselves wandering around blindly. The spot where we struggle to remember who we are and where we belong.

The wilderness gives us an opportunity to grow.

In this place of nothing and no one we are reminded of what matters most to us.

For me, that is people, my pace of life and my passions.

People.

When I feel lost, nothing sets me straight like spending time with those I love most.
Those who know me, truly know me and love me all the same.

Those who have been through all of the previous wilderness places with me and have the postcards I sent them to prove it.

Those who challenge me everyday to be better and try harder because they believe in me, even if I don’t.

When it comes down to it, there are a handful of precious people in this world who will always have your back.

They’ll hold you when it feels like your world is falling apart. They’ll show you how to laugh when sadness is all you know. And they’ll gently guide you till you find your way back home.

Pace of life.

Nothing causes me to burn out faster than overfilling my plate and over committing myself.

But recently I’ve realized this issue runs deeper than the fullness of my schedule, it’s to do with my entire environment.

I hate the hustle and bustle of living in the city. I hate that everyone is always in a hurry, so impatient, so unforgiving. I hate that this concrete jungle consumes us. Swallows us whole and spits out these grumbling, flustered, irritable people.

I miss the fresh air of the country. I miss seeing people I know and actually taking the time to chat with them. I miss driving anywhere and finding a free parking spot.

So it is the wilderness that reminds me to slow down. And perhaps to seek out calmer places for me to live, work and stay. The city is fine for a while but I know now that my heart belongs in the country.

Passions.

In this confusing place I’m seeking out the things that make me feel most alive. The things that make me feel happy and excited to get up in the morning.

The things that make me, me.

I miss dressing up everyday. I miss wearing pretty outfits with matching shoes and fun accessories.

I miss feeling inspired to write. Carrying around an ideas notebook and stopping randomly to fill a page because I simply must spill my ideas down immediately.

I miss taking the time to prepare food that I love and that makes me feel good rather than shoveling food into my mouth as I rush out the door.

I hate the wilderness.

It feels so unnerving. So lonely. So indefinite.

But perhaps, the wilderness is what I need.

Maybe wandering out here is necessary before I leap forwards into something new.

Because in the wilderness we are lost and we find ourselves.
We are broken and remade.
We are emptied so that we can be filled once more.

The wilderness doesn’t last forever…eventually we will find our place again.

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In Seeking encouragement

My body, my home

Mirrors, they are forever betraying me.

Enlarging my flaws.

Highlighting my weaknesses.

Pinpointing my insecurities.

A sheet of glass that always manages to find my achilles heel.

Why are my eyes so puffy in the morning?

Are my thighs really always that big?

I scrutinize every inch of myself until my stomach feels sick.

But it’s not the mirror who despises me.

It’s not the glass that leaves me feeling this way.

It’s my own head, my own thoughts that betray me, conditioned to believe beauty is only skin deep.

I shake the horrible thoughts out of my head. I hug my arms around myself.

I will not fight my own flesh anymore.

This is my body, this is my home.

I have always had a tentative relationship with my body.

There have been times when I have treated it poorly. Depriving it, over exerting it, attempting to squeeze it into jeans that were never designed for these hips.

Our relationship is one filled with one-sided animosity.

It seemed unfair to me that as I grew up, I expanded in some areas and not others. Like a balloon blown up all wonky instead of precisely into the standard shape.

I thought that women came in a standard shape too.

Blonde hair, check. Blue eyes, check. But what happened to my large breasts and tiny waist? Where is my golden tan and long, lean legs?

It seemed some pieces were missing from this perfect puzzle.

So I wrestled with my body for years. Desperately trying to manipulate it into that ideal shape and degrading this home of mine in the process.

Allowing weeds to take over the flowerbeds. Letting paint start to chip. Not worrying about the cracks in the ceiling or wallpaper beginning to fade.

Making it look from the outside as though everything was as it should be but on the inside I was crumbling into disrepair.

But I thought I had put all of that behind me. I thought I had made peace with my body. I thought I was finally free from this crippling, self-loathing mindset.

In the back of my mind I always knew that my body would eventually change, I was under no illusion that I would stay the size of a twenty year old forever. I just didn’t expect gaining weight to affect me so much.

But it has.

I was surprised how quickly the tears would come when I looked at myself in the mirror. I was shocked just how easily I allowed guilt to dictate what I ate. I was saddened to watch myself slipping back into the same old habits and not knowing what to do to stop it.

Because it’s easy to love your body when it fits the mold. It’s not difficult to have self compassion when you believe you are the right size.

It’s when my jeans began to feel too tight and my stomach still stuck out a little even when I was sucking it in that I discovered how difficult self love really is.

Self love is not something that comes naturally like taking a breath as you come out of water or blinking when a bright light flashes.

Learning how to love myself, my new self has been hard.

Possibly one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Which perhaps makes me sound vain and conceited but in a world which constantly reminds me that I need to change in order to fit in and be lovable, it’s not surprising at all.

I’ve been down this road now a few times and I’ve learnt that restriction and shame are not the answer. Loathing myself or fighting against my body just doesn’t work.

So it seems that a new attitude is in order.

I cannot be at war with myself anymore. It’s too exhausting. I cannot just sit idly by while the place I live begins to fall apart.

This is my body, this is my home.

And so I remind myself each and every day…

My worth is not dependent on my weight.

While this body is my home, it is not my full person.

I am singing along to country music with the windows down driving along the highway. I am laughing at the ocean waves lapping around my ankles and squealing when the water gets too high. I am giving a cheeky wink to my Father on stage at our school production.

You cannot contain me within the walls of this body, I am more than layers of flesh and a foundation of bones.

I am a gentle warmth, a cool breeze, a soft whisper.

My body is remarkable and it deserves my utmost respect.

To diminish its purpose to simple aesthetics is outrageous.

This body can run for miles and miles. This body can hear a rhythm and melt into the music. This body can heal itself, transform itself and grow another whole human being inside of it.

This body is incredible.

Change is inevitable, adaptation is crucial.

Nothing in this life stays the same forever. It has often been said that change is the only constant.

Therefore, I will not be surprised nor phased by change, I will simply adapt and move forwards.

A changing body means a life that is progressing. We are growing older and wiser. We are tracking towards new adventures and achievements.

Women aren’t like balloons. We don’t come in a standard shape or size. We are unique and that is something that should be celebrated rather than diminished.

Trying to squeeze us into one mold is a crying shame. There is so much beauty in our diversity. There is so much wonder in our individuality.

When I look at the women in my life I feel that this is a battle that might not be won overnight. Because I’ve seen these precious ladies fighting against their bodies my whole life.

But that makes me no less determined to win this war of self compassion.

If not for me than for my daughters, my nieces, my best friends. For every woman who looks up to me and watches how I treat this place I call home.

I hope they will see something different in me. A deeper respect, an honest disposition, an abundance of grace.

A woman who bears the wrinkles of decades of laughter. Who proudly wears stretch marks from bringing new life into the world. Who has freckles from glorious summers in the sunshine and perhaps carries a little extra weight for all the meals that make life worth living.

I believe that in the end, the struggle is worth it.

Because this is my body, this is my home.

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