[originally posted April 2015] What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word stepmother? More than likely, it’s wicked. As a new stepmom, you can imagine I am less than thrilled about this. Becoming a stepmom was not my first foray into the world of wicked steps – far from it. From a young age, my life was full of family members who weren’t related to me by blood. I had divorced and remarried parents; married to, you guessed it, my stepparents. I grew up with stepsiblings. I have step-aunts and uncles and cousins, even. And actually, I had a step-grandfather long before any ..read more

[originally posted May 2016] I wrote before that Step is Not a Dirty Word. As a stepmom who grew up with the same Cinderella connotations as the rest of you, I remind myself of this often. I am one thousand percent confident of my position in my daughter’s life, as her parent. Differentiating me as a stepmom is, some days, nothing more than a necessary explanation of why my kid calls out “Meggie!” instead of “Mommy!” when I pick her up at school. When my husband and I were engaged, I talked to my girl about the vocab involved in our situation. I asked her permission to refer to ..read more

[originally posted November 2015] Hi, my name is Megan, and I grew up in a blended family. Then I grew up to blend one myself. While the blended family {defined as a family consisting of a couple and their children from this and all previous relationships} is more and more common in today’s world, I haven’t stumbled upon a lot of people like me – who have seen it from both sides. It is a fairly surreal experience, I think, to have struggled with a step-parent or two, only to grow up and be one yourself. In many ways, I am uniquely equipped for just such an undertaking in my adult li ..read more

I’ve been thinking a lot about movement lately. Like many kids, I grew up pretty active. I liked playing sports and running around outside all summer and took the natural movement of my life for granted. At some point, I internalized that “exercise” was something different – exercise, or “working out” was about controlling your body, changing its shape, and/or mitigating what you had decided to eat or were planning to eat later. We exercised to “earn our calories!” When I went to college, movement changed dramatically for me (and I think this is true for many kids at this stage, but more on t ..read more

I’ve thought a lot about grief these past few years. I used to be of the mind that grief was a term strictly used to describe how we responded to death. I thought the only valid grief was the physical loss of a person you loved from this earth. And I’ll be the first to tell you, having lost people, that kind of grief is a beast of a burden. It is among the most wrenching of the griefs, to be sure. But it is not the only grief. A few years ago we had a run-in with infertility. Month after month after month of hope dashed by a negative test. It felt a lot like grief, but I hadn’t actually lost a ..read more

I first wrote this thought down in 2011, and I revised it in 2014, both times when I was leaving jobs. This week I am leaving another job, where I’ve been for the better part of the last decade, and while I know it’s the right move for me, I am yet again knocked sideways by this same phenomenon. Though transition is necessary, and I believe change is good, it always comes with some heavy emotions for me. Back in 2011, I complained so much about being unemployed. Genuine, heartfelt, deeply rooted complaint. So as a deeply transitional part of my life wrapped up, as I quit nannying and work ..read more

A few years ago I experienced what I would call my biggest physical trauma to date: childbirth. I had a fairly dramatic delivery, though I’ll spare you the details here on the internet. I quickly realized a rite of passage that was now mine – telling my birth story. It was so satisfying to sit with another [willing] person and share what I experienced. I remember vividly the feeling of shock waving over me after my daughter was born, and thinking to myself later – oh. this is why they call it trauma. Telling the story was a big part of my processing of it and it helped me so much to get to tal ..read more

MG 6/27/22 ..read more

I used to be weird about pictures. It felt like a very real threat to my security and safety that at any given time someone might take my picture and it might not be a picture that I thought was good. Good, of course, meant one where none of my perceived flaws showed. A candid? A definite non starter. A full body group photo where I’m not able to hide behind anyone? Absolutely not. My husband has always taken pictures of me. Sometimes they’re really sweet and you can tell he thought I looked pretty and wanted to capture a moment we shared. Other times I’m asleep with my mouth open, but that’s ..read more

When I was growing up, no surprise, I was a sharer. I told my mom (who had no choice but to be my captive audience) almost everything that happened and every time I came home with a new tale of school woes, her response would be generally the same: They’re probably just insecure. Me, 15, an absolute delight I’m sure she said other things too, but this is what I recall most, and OH it made me mad. It makes me laugh now because of course – she’s right – but at the time I remember rolling my eyes and thinking okay, MOM, everyone is not insecure. That’s ridiculous. I certainly realized that I ..read more