back at it.

It's been awhile.

And I have missed this.

I've struggled to find a place for blogging in my post-JVC life, just like I how I struggled to find a place for blogging during college after studying abroad in Rome.

The fact of the matter is I like blogging. As an introvert, I often feel like I communicate more clearly through writing than speaking. However, it's difficult for me to blog when the overarching theme of my life isn't wrapped up in something specific. Before it's been "Megan moves to Italy and studies abroad!" and then "Megan moves to Boston and does a year of service!" Now my life is "Megan works full time at at non-profit and lives 80 miles away from where she grew up!" See? The last one definitely isn't as exciting (although I suppose it's debatable that the first two ever were).

Frequently, I still wonder if I have anything "good" to say (I certainly always have something to say). I don't live the most exciting life, but I find the beauty in the small things, the joys and challenges. And I'm learning more about finding God in the dailiness of my life.

But honestly? Most people I know and most blogs I read and love these days are written by people in the same boat. And I think to dismiss the ordinary and the everyday as unimportant is one of the biggest traps that we fall into. Your life matters, my life matters, and the stories that we share about them most certainly matter.

“But I talk about my life anyway because if, on the one hand, hardly anything could be less important, on the other hand, hardly anything could be more important. My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually." --Frederick Buechner

There's great value in sharing those stories, so I'm here to talk about mine: Learning to juggle work and life in new ways. Being a twenty-something and all that entails. Generally being happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time (sorry, had to go there).

During a recent read, I stumbled across a great piece of wisdom from Ignatian discernment. Basically, it boils down to this: when we keep all of our struggles, fears, and uncertainties secret inside of us, they have a tendency to overwhelm us. When we are vulnerable and put them out into the open, we take away some of the power that they have.

I can think of so many times in my life when it's been true. There are moments when it's mildly terrifying for me to open up--and we're not talking about just to strangers. Sometime it's my best friends, my family, my roommates, or my coworkers. It's easy for me to freak myself out and get stuck in my own head. When I finally do, however, I always feel that overwhelming sense of relief, of release. For this reason, it's healthy for me to push myself to be intentional about being vulnerable and open, and I think that blogging is a good way for me to do it.

The past year has been a good one for me, but it has also had it's own challenges. I haven't always known how to address all of the joys and challenges of my present state in life through blogging, but in this spirit, I want to recommit myself to writing in this space. I don't know quite where this will take me in the future, but I'm going to follow my heart for this one. But it will be here for now at least, again.

Let's see what happens, right?