Entry #30 • July 28th, 2026

Just Me - That's What This Is

I want to write, I want to write, I want to wriiiiiiite.

I think about writing often now. It feels engulfing. But sometimes I ignore the urge because I tell myself I don’t have time right now (it really does take time to commit to it if I’m going to turn it into a Just Me entry), or that I don’t really have a direction or theme for it. Really though, those just become excuses to push it off.

I don’t know why. I think part of it is that performative piece that seems to live in me continuously. If I’m going to write a Just Me, then it needs to be good. It needs to have a purpose.

But is that really the goal of Just Me?

Or is it to be…Just…Me?

I’ve been publishing the Just Me archives over on Substack, one per week. Every Tuesday, just like how you all get the latest entries here on Tuesday mornings. Before I publish the next archived Just Me, I read through the entire thing to make sure everything copied over correctly, insert images, add links, all that stuff. It means I’ve been re-reading these entries from a year ago, and wow…what a trip that’s been. (If you want to re-read the entries, one per week with me, click here to subscribe to my Substack, and click "No pledge" - there's not cost!).

It’s fascinating to see those moments captured in words that are more deliberate than my personal journal. I know I’ve written about this before, but writing in my journal versus writing a Just Me entry is different. When I write a Just Me, I really pause and think through how I’m putting words to feelings and experiences. It feels more intentional. Like I’m painting a picture for you with words.

I don’t spend the same kind of energy in my journal. My journal is mostly me dumping my worries and struggles onto the page…for myself.

Right now it’s Monday night. 9:45 p.m.

I had resigned myself to not getting a new Just Me out this week, but like I said…I really want to write.

So I’m going for it.

This is going to be a true stream of consciousness, with no particular path or end goal at this point, other than to just write. I trust it’ll come together.

My feelings feel so tangled right now. I feel pulled by so many different responsibilities and cares in my life. I feel like Stretch Armstrong, being pulled…pulled…pulled. I’m sure you can relate.

My mind is going constantly.

Am I doing a good enough job?
Did I forget anything?
Did I fight hard enough?
Did I slow down and see the people I needed to see?
Did I get everything done?
Did I fail?

Life feels so full right now.

And by “right now,” I mean the last few years.

This current season has not been for the faint of heart. It makes me think that maybe Megan from ten years ago wouldn’t have been prepared for it. It’s almost as though every season has leveled me up for the next one.

Simultaneously, every season also seems to feel like the hardest one yet.

I’m sure that’s just perspective, though. Like the grass always being greener on the other side.

I Feel So Pulled...

My second son has graduated (that's a quarter of my kids graduated...but who's counting🥲). We’re having his graduation celebration in October, when life temporarily “slows down.” We need to coordinate senior pictures, plan the graduation, invite people, and then actually host it all.

I feel so pulled...

I don’t like planning events. And yet I have a couple I need to plan: the graduation in October, and then my sixth child’s birthday party.

When our kids have birthdays, we celebrate at home as a family with my parents. But when they turn 10, they get a full-on friend birthday party. Something extra special.

Well…that’s happening for him at the end of August.

I know how important it is to get this birthday party right, but I just feel so worn. I’ll pull myself up by my bootstraps, figure it out with him, and make it special and magical because these are the memories he’ll carry from his childhood.

I feel so pulled...

My oldest son is cruising along in his career at the mere age of 20. His salary has nearly surpassed mine. 😅 That isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s incredible. But I still feel pulled in response to it.

What am I even doing with my life?

How can I personally advance my career?

I feel incredibly stagnant, and it’s giving me the itch to figure something out. (I have like twenty ideas on the docket.)

I might be having a mini midlife crisis.

That’ll probably have to be a different Just Me.

I feel so pulled...

I have so many projects I want to do around the house, but everything takes time or money, and generally both. I can use more of my time to make it cost less money, or I can use more money to make it cost less of my time. Either way, it costs, and I don’t have much of either available right now.

So instead, I just feel stuck. Like I can’t even maintain, and instead, am actually losing ground.

For example, I’ve been wanting to get the carpets professionally cleaned for about nine months now, but trying to coordinate that with ten people living in the house is…hard.

And that’s just one tiny thing on the home project list.

I feel so pulled...

Am I meeting my kids’ individual needs well enough? Who is lacking?

How can I show up better for them despite all the things pulling on me?

What my 18- and 20-year-old boys need is quite different from what my 17-year-old needs in the last part of his high school years. And my 14-year-old is in his own category right now as he navigates his early high school years. My 12-year-old daughter has her own needs as she steps into the “teen” world at church and becomes part of the youth group (which my husband leads).

Then there’s my precious 9—almost 10—year-old. I feel like he’s the most overshadowed and really needs deliberate time and attention. He’s caught between worlds…his next oldest sibling moving on with the “big kids” while he’s left behind for a time with the “little kids.” He’s in his own tough in-between season.

And then there are my sweet 4- and 6-year-old boys. They’re just little boys who want to play, imagine, and ask questions…constantly. They’re the easy ones right now. Let them play and explore, throw in some cuddles and tickles, and they’re happy to keep trucking.

I feel so pulled...

How do I make time for my closest friend? My partner in this life. The one I chose to build this life with.

We’re both trying to keep everything afloat at home, and it’s hard to even see each other sometimes. Summer has been nice because he’s off as a teacher, and it gives us a slightly slower pace. But he goes back in a week, and I’m kind of mourning it.

Because that’s it.

We basically won’t see each other for the next nine months. (I’m being dramatic, I know).

I mean, we do see each other…but it’s all in passing.

Last year we made it a point to go out for dinner once a week, or at least every other week, just so we could touch base. At first, the conversations felt pretty all-business—covering the kids’ schedules, our work schedules, and everything else we needed to coordinate.

But I found that as we kept those dinners going, they started creating space for conversations that were a little less structured. We talked about our kids and who they’re becoming. What they need. Where we need to be more intentional. Where we need to let go.

It still doesn’t feel like enough, though.

So I remind myself that this is simply what this season is for now.

I feel so pulled...

As I continue battling with a local hospital over a massive billing issue that is now more than a year old. It’s been escalated all the way to the CFO, who has essentially blown me off.

At this point, it might be easier to just pay the bill and move on with life. But there’s a piece of me that feels like I’m fighting for more than just myself. I’ve had numerous people tell me they’ve had similar struggles with this hospital’s billing practices, and that just lights more of a fire under me to keep fighting…for all of us.

It’s also messy because I have a strong business relationship with this hospital through Colorado Baby. I can’t simply “move on” from this billing disaster. Without some kind of reconciliation, it’s impossible for it not to affect that professional relationship.

I need a breakthrough with this situation because the amount of life and stress it’s stealing from me is really unreasonable.

I feel so pulled...

How can I do a better job with Colorado Baby?

Where can I improve as a leader for my staff?

This role pulls on me heavily. In certain ways, I truly think it’s the most challenging role in my life.

There’s a weight that comes with building a business your community values and that people depend on for part of their livelihood.

It makes the cost of everything feel so much heavier.

The cost of failing.
The cost of messing up.
The cost of missing something.
The cost of choosing my words poorly.
The cost of making the wrong decision.

It’s so heavy.

Then I wonder…

Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe it shouldn’t feel this heavy. Maybe I’m making it harder than it needs to be.

Or maybe…

Maybe it really is this hard and this weighty. Maybe it only feels a hundred times heavier because I also have twenty thousand other responsibilities.

I’m exaggerating, but…I wrestle with this a lot.

I feel so pulled...

How can I be a better friend during this season to the people I care about most?

How can I possibly be a better friend when I feel like I can’t even show up for my kids, my husband, and my staff the way I want to?

A few months back, during one of my many little personal breakdowns, I remember thinking, Maybe this just isn’t a season for friends. Maybe I need to put friendship on the back burner. Lay it down for now.

But that doesn’t seem feasible for my quality-time-love-language self.

I genuinely thrive on quality time, but it can be exceptionally hard to make our schedules work when mine is so complicated and, truthfully, very narrow. Sometimes I end up feeling like the entitled one in the relationship, as though I’m asking everyone else to work around my schedule. That isn’t my intention…but I really am working with a very thin margin.

I feel like I could (and probably should) write an entire Just Me about this too.

I feel so pulled...

By the absolute chaos of this season of life.

I had a customer in today who said she felt like she was losing her mind with “just two kids and a full-time job.” She said, “I think about it often. I think about how you do this with more than two kids.”

I didn’t really say anything. She wasn’t asking for a response so much as wanting to share in the frustration.

And when I hear these feelings of overwhelm from other moms, I never, ever think, Oh, suck it up. Imagine doing it with eight. That thought honestly never crosses my mind, even though people occasionally project it onto me.

What crosses my mind is, Friend…I know. I’m right there with you.

Because it is hard.

One kid, two kids, eight kids. Working outside the home, working inside the home. Being a mom is work, no matter what. And it’s hard.

I thought it would get easier with time and experience, but I’m finding it hasn’t. At least not in the way I thought it would. I thought I’d eventually hit cruise control.

But I’m discovering that maybe that never comes.

It does feel a little like cruise control with my youngest two boys. Maybe that’s because it’s the seventh and eighth time I’ve had a 6- and 4-year-old.

Yeah…that makes sense. That part is experience.

But I’ve never had a 20-, 18-, 17-, 14-, 12-, 9-, 6-, and 4-year-old all at the same time before.

That’s new.

Which means there’s always going to be something new. Even when they’re all adults, they’ll be in different stages of adulthood.

I’m slowly letting go of the idea that someday this is all just going to get easier. Instead, I feel my hands being forced to release this false idea that I’m supposed to know what I’m doing.

The longer I live, the more I realize how little I know. I guess that’s part of getting older. Maybe that’s wisdom itself.

I feel so pulled...

In my own direction...or lack of it.

What am I doing? What are my talents, and where are they needed? Where can they best be used? I don’t want to waste time spinning my wheels in places I’m not supposed to be.

Luke 12:48 plays in my head frequently:

I feel so pulled...

Am I taking care of myself?

Not in a selfish “self-care this, self-care that” kind of way. (I’m so over that trend. Maybe that can be another Just Me. Wow…I’ve spun off a lot of future entries from this one. 😂)

But am I actually caring for myself so I don’t create an avoidable health crisis? Am I eating well? Moving my body enough? Sleeping enough? Filling my mind with good things instead of negative ones?

And on and on and on the questions go.

Grace in the Cracks

As I sit here writing, I've realized something.

Every one of those questions assumes the same thing:

That somehow, I’m supposed to be enough.

However...the good news is…I don’t have to be enough.

I can’t be enough. I do not have to attain this impossible capacity in all the things I listed above on my own. I simply can’t.

Matthew 11:28–30

2 Corinthians 12:9

I don’t know how God does it, but somehow He fills in all the cracks of my life with His grace. He is enough.

And so despite feeling unbelievably pulled…

God gives me strength…even when I feel stretched in every direction.

Maybe that’s why they called him Stretch ArmSTRONG.

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–Just Me[gan]