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Megan Stielstra

Dear Life., Guest Posts

Dear Life: I Am In Love. But It’s a Mess.

December 26, 2014

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By Megan Stielstra.

Welcome to Dear Life: An Unconventional Advice Column. Your questions get sent to various authors from around the world to answer (and please keep sending because I have like 567 writers that want to answer your burning questions. Click here to submit a letter.) Different writers offer their input when it comes to navigating through life’s messiness. We are “making messy okay.” Today’s letter is answered by one of my heroes (I guess I should call her a She-ro?) Megan Stielstra. She’s also happened to have written one of my favorite books, um, EVER: Once I Was Cool. Not just from last year but, ever. So this is cool. Once I was cool, indeed. She has also been interviewed by my dear friend (and her dear friend) Elizabeth Crane on this very site. It’s just delicious. But anyway, this Dear Life is so good. Read and share and comment and get her book and send us your questions because there loads of crazy authors waiting to answer ’em. Just kidding, they aren’t crazy.

Well okay, maybe a little. Aren’t we all? xo, Jen Pastiloff, Crazy Beauty Hunter.

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Dear Life,

I have fallen in love. It’s such a gorgeously distracting feeling. All I have to do is picture him, with the ocean in his eyes and wilderness his face, to run all hot and sweaty. He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen, and he feels the same way about me. No one has ever given me the kind of compliments he does; ones that make me feel real, feel beautiful. I hold my head higher these days.

The problem is (because of course there has to be one), I already have someone. I live with my boyfriend, and it’s fine. It’s just fine, and it’s been for quite some time. He is a good man, he treats me right, tries to make me happy. For some reason though, it’s a long time since I felt truly happy in his company. Our conversations have grown shallow, we never sleep together anymore (lately, I don’t even feel like being touched by him), I don’t feel that we connect. I have known this for well over a year, but since there’s never been any actual disagreements or conflicts between us, I have let it slide. I have accepted the situation and carried the longing for something more hidden deep inside of me. But over the last couple of weeks, it has broken free, it has spilled out and overflowed. All is filled with longing now.

I am so discontent, feeling so utterly alone at times, but he seems to be fine. He seems to have no problem with the lack of intimacy or excitement. And he is such a nice person; I don’t know how to let him down. I have never said any of this to him out loud, so if I do, it will probably come as lightning from a clear sky. And it will crush him. How do you go about crushing someone who loves you? I don’t want to do it, the mere thought makes me sick to my stomach, but still… If I cannot be with this man I have met, if I cannot touch his face and hold his hand and soak up his warmth, I think I might die.

I don’t want to believe that I am a bad person, cause I spend all this time consciously doing good, but now it seems I am losing my way; doing things I never thought myself capable of. It feels awful, but at the same time, I don’t know what else I could have done. He was impossible to ignore. I had to be with him, and it will forever be my most beautiful memory.

Right now I am having a beer in bed and crying. Please help.
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Books, Converse-Station

The Converse-Station: Elizabeth Crane interviews Megan Stielstra.

July 21, 2014

Hey there, Jen Pastiloff here. I’m the founder of The Manifest-Station! Welcome to the newest installment- The Converse-Station: A place where writers interview writers. Today’s interview is between Elizabeth Crane (my good bud) and Megan Stielstra. 

If you are a writer and have someone you want to interview or have a pitch, please email Angela Giles.*

By Elizabeth Crane:

Megan Stielstra is my friend. Megan has a badass collection of essays out now from Curbside Splendor called Once I Was Cool, and she has sixteen or five jobs, something like that, as well as a husband and a kid and a dog, but I would advise against asking her how she juggles it. She juggles it like I juggle approximately a third of what she juggles, shit just gets juggled, and sometimes things drop, and that is why we are friends.

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