It’s my 42nd birthday! A perfect time for a me-centric article.
I love this type of content, it’s a fun excuse to think and talk about myself. So, please, humor me in this navel gazing exercise.
40ish Facts About Me
I’ve organized my facts into categories, as I can’t help myself.
Lore
My earliest years were spent in a very small town, surrounded by people who’d known me my whole life and (usually) more than one generation and branch of my family. I felt refreshingly accepted; behavior deviations were met with a shrug and “reminds me of your uncle/grandma/second cousin so and so.”
The first time I ever held a microphone in a casual setting (kareoke at the Moose vs. on a podium), I refused to give it back; circling the room, urging attendees to accept Elvis’ death.
I was fifteen the first time I experienced embarrassment, and I had no idea what was happening. I remember my mom rubbing my back as I sobbed, explaining what that horrible feeling was.
My grandmothers were pioneering dynamos, in their own ways. In her retirement, the maternal one brought water aerobics to Central Indiana (despite being unable to swim), after an adulthood of running multiple businesses and chairing everything that could be chaired.
The paternal one was a Midwest Princess, with progressive parents who valued education. She married and had kids young, going on to complete her Master’s, and teach school. She was wickedly funny, wry and disciplined. When I asked why she travelled to Russia in the 1970’s, she replied, “Well, I just had to see if it was true. It wasn’t.” She too, chaired everything she could.
I worked one summer as a door-to-door saleswoman, selling, uh…large household cleaning appliances. It was a seedy industry, replete with valuable insights. It should scare you to know that I made thousands of dollars that summer.
Fun Facts
My feet are so messed up. Since my last pregnancy, my second toe has started hanging out under my big toe.
I saw King Charles and Camilla in real life once.
The theme of my adult body composition is weight fluctuation. I grew up overweight (reaching approximately 270 in my early twenties), and then lost one-hundred pounds. With four pregnancies, that trend continued through my thirties. I’m around 200 pounds as of this writing, and hope to hit (and stay!) at 170 by next year.
I’ve had two supernatural experiences: the whisper of my best friend, “Megan, are you up?” reverberated throughout my room, even though she was in another dorm (she confirmed it was her the next morning, when I demanded answers) and the olfactory haunting of ascending from the basement to a kitchen that smelled chokingly of breaded and fried catfish, despite there not being any cooking for several hours, or houses within sniffing distance.
Speaking of supernatural, the way I seek out, soak in, retain, and regurgitate information is not normal. It’s some kind of neurodivergence.
Likes
I joke about the dangers of being perceived, but I love it. Put me on a stage, plop me in front of a screen, give me a room to work, and watch magic unfold.
My favorite food type is American Amish/Mennonite: give me all the cream and lard-based comfort food! Seriously, slather me in noodles.
Gracie Abrams, and I don’t understand why y’all hate on her.
I say I began liking pop music in adulthood, but that’s not really true. I returned to pop. CrazySexyCool (TLC) was the first CD I owned. I huddled under the covers to tape record the radio station’s Top 9 at 9. Middle school brought Fiona Apple, considered “alternative pop.” Limp Bizkit and then my college friends, turned me away. But I came running back, an increasingly fervent Swiftie throughout my late 20’s and 30’s, leading to the 40-yr-old me that unironically toasted Brat Summer.
I love “one and done” outfits: rompers, dresses, matching sets, jumpsuits, etc. I think I’ll wear them until I’m physically unable to remove them.
Dislikes
The first time I ever had a sweet deviled egg, I burst into tears (I was pregnant, but still). I didn’t even know they existed.
I panic when the gas gauge reaches a quarter of a tank, another effect leftover from small town living. We had a “filling station,” but it kept erratic hours.
The sensation of toenails getting caught on a sock makes me shudder with disgust.
It’s not that I dislike TikTok, I dislike what short-form content is doing to the societal attention span. Seems inevitable, though. Buckle up.
It’s maddening that the powers-that-be fiddle with the Overton Window in order to distort truth and highjack conversations (i.e., letting people yap about the “fake moon landing” and the “hollow moon” when the real tea is Operation Paperclip).
Have You Always Been Like This?
When I was in college, we took pictures with cameras: film, and soon after, digital. Digital was great, as I could delete incriminating pictures one at a time rather than rip out the whole film strip. And you better believe entire strips were destroyed in the early 2000’s. My own, and a handful of other people’s. Some of them were too scared to say no, but most shrugged and understood (“I’ll have some kind of public life, we need to get rid of those,” I’d explain).
I signed my name, on papers and just random graffiti, with an exclamation point, well into my mid-twenties.
I was never suspended (in or out of school) but I get sent home to change once when we dressed up in protest of the dress code/a Marilyn Manson concert in Indianapolis that night (the details are murky). It ended up making the front page of the newspaper because one of the participants had (unwittingly) worn a trench coat too close to Columbine.
In the aforementioned small town, I would walk to the (small, Carnegie) library with my wagon, fill it to the brim, and walk home, pulling the cart behind me while reading.
My mother showed me a letter that I gave her as a pre-teen, after my parent’s divorce, in which I encouraged her not to worry about me, as I was “smart,” “strong,” and “everybody loves me,” so “my adulthood will be fine.” (Where’s the lie???)
Megan In Love
Before Josh and I got together, I went to his house and made him confess that he liked me. When he said yes, I was all, “so…you wanna bang?” He smiled indulgently and replied, “um, yes. But I want to get married and have kids and all that, too.” Color me gobsmacked.
At some point in infancy, all four of our children thought their name was “good boy/girl.”
My first crush was Michael, a cutie pie with floppy dark hair in my preschool. He could tie his shoes.
My mother answered “myself first, then my daughters, right behind,” when I asked her who she loved the most. This was a good thing to hear repeatedly.
Three of my exes have crazy looking mugshots (and, if you’re keeping count, that’s half of them; I’ve only got six.)
Top 5
Top 5 living dinner guests: Lionel Shriver, Brooke Hayward, Tim Dillon, Kris Jenner, and the head of the CIA (honorable mention: Brennan Spears).
Top 5 dead dinner guests: Nora Ephron, one of the Mitford sisters (maybe Diana?), a medieval peasant, Joseph Kennedy, Zeno of Citium (honorable mention: one of Capote’s swans).
Top 5 living authors (without too much thought): Joyce Carol Oates, Ali Smith, Chiamaka Nnadozie, Jennifer Egan, and Thomas Mallon (honorable mention: Colson Whitehead).
Top 5 dead authors (ditto): David Foster Wallace, Joan Didion, Truman Capote, Phillip Roth, and Theodore Dreiser.
Top 5 makeup products: glow-y tinted primer, concealer, bright cream blush, mascara, kohl eyeliner for tightlining (honorable mention: undereye color corrector).
Top 5 skincare products: small facial razor (for shaving), skincare devices (red light mask, nuFACE mini), makeup removing soap, targeted serums, and temporary undereye patches (honorable mention: castor oil).
Random Advice/Hot Takes
People are as they repeatedly do. Period.
That doesn’t mean that people can’t change. But it does mean that you have to start changing now, right now, to fill up the “things I repeatedly do” bank with positive behaviors. For how long? Until it quits being an effort, which, I promise, will happen. It may take years but it will happen (that “21 days to make a habit” is bullshit).
Health isn’t something I own, it’s something I rent. Every day I’ve got to pay a fee of eating well, sleeping enough, managing stress, etc, in order to keep it. And even then, it’s not guaranteed.
In my 40’s, I’m more transparent with the advice I can’t help but give, in the sense of, “this worked for me, do as I do-if you want,” rather than my younger attitude of “do this or you’re wrong!!!”
Cognitive dissonance (the feeling of discomfort that results from holding two opposing thoughts at the same time) is as natural to the human experience as being born, as natural as dying. It is our responsibility to learn how to accept, function, and cope with cognitive dissonance, with an eye on ultimately mastering it (unlikely, but a fun challenge).
Want More?
Get more lore here:
- 40 Powerful Life Lessons I’ve Learned in 40 Years
- 38 Things I’ve Learned In 38 Years
- 36 Things I’ve Learned in 36 Years
Happy birthday to me!
Love,
