Tag Archives: Love

Health and Happiness

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It’s been awhile. It’s been a really long time actually. My fingers lost their place under the covers the last couple of weeks and today I am finally returning back to the computer and the neglected blogosphere. I hope everybody had a FANTASTIC holiday, I know I loved coming home and seeing friends and family! Christmas was very simple – I was surrounded by friends and family, which brought me down from my “New-York-skyscraper-high”. After Christmas, my Dad and sister headed out to Florida for a soccer tournament (in typical Patten fashion), which left my Mom and I to bond over our love for seafood, the beach, and being social. Unfortunately for her, I came down with the crud which turned out to be a nasty kidney infection and we wound up in the ER on New Year’s Eve. Twas quite the eventful end to the year, but it made for great blogspiration. As I bent over to receive a very much dreaded and painful antibiotic shot in the left butt cheek, the only thought in my mind was “Thank God I’m not sick enough to stay here. Thank God I’m healthy.”

Looking forward, this year (for me) is about health and happiness. I head out to Madrid in a few days and turn twenty (yikes!) in less than a month. It’s a little frightening to think that I’m embarking on a new stage of my life, but hey it’ll be another adventure in the making. As I “Eat, Pray, and Love” my way through España over the next few months, I’ll be focusing on finding myself and carving my own path. Over the holidays I was asked multiple times by friends and family, “What are you doing with your life” – I hope that this jaunt abroad will help me find purpose in life (though I’m not ready to settle down on anything yet).


I’m looking forward to my adventures overseas and I hope you are too! To follow me abroad check out this blog I made specifically for my time spent in Madrid:

http://megenmadrid.blogspot.com


If anybody is in Spain or Europe for that matter, please do not hesitate to contact me – I’d love to meet up.

For more updates, check out my twitter @megpatten and my instagram @mpatten1

A Love Letter to NY

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You never know how much you miss a place until you leave it. 

Yes. I absolutely and unapologetically believe this to be one hundred and ten percent true. It’s just starting to hit me that I will be leaving my city, the city,  the city where everything fits together in perfect jigsaw fashion, in less than 24 short hours. 

I have always known that you never really miss a place until your as far away as it as possible, but seeing as my whole life I’ve uplifted my roots every few years, something else resonances within me when I reread this quote. I am so lucky to have a multitude of places I can call “home”. There’s San Diego – the place where I return “home”, New York City – the “home” where I lost my heart and never looked back,and the other many places where I’ve planted my roots. It seems to me that each time I leave again, the easier it gets and the “missing” seems less. Maybe it’s just so entrenched in who I am as a person that leaving seems almost normal and missing it would seem counterintuitive because I know I’ll be back. 


I’ll be leaving in more than just a physical sense tomorrow. I’ll be leaving my friends, memories, and part of my heart. I am so in love with the city, that It hurts to even think about boarding that plane tomorrow. The past five months in New York have given me a “family” of whom I can’t even imagine not living with now, a ridiculous amount of experiences (mostly resulting in late night pizza and hilarious group texts the next morning), and a sense of adventure. I was stuck in a rut at the end of last year – simply going through the motions – but now I am invigorated and cannot wait to wake up each day, for there is a new adventure to be had. 


There really isn’t any other way to describe how I feel about leaving so I wrote a letter to New York:

New York, I will miss you more than you ever know. 

I will miss your white pizza at 3AM in Saint Marks, 

the random conversations on the subway with tourists from Louisiana, 

and the fresh smell of rain hitting the pavement after weeks without rain.

New York, I will miss you more than I can express in words.

I will miss being able to explore a plethora of villages and neighborhoods without even leaving the island.

I will miss the crazy taxis and their swerving driving styles,

the tiny shoebox apartments my friends reside in, 

and the never ending sirens that make up the sounds of the night. 

New York, Tomorrow I say adieu to more than just friends, great chinese food, and getting lost among millions.

I say goodbye to the greatest city on Earth that has taught me more about myself than any person or school teacher could.


New York, I must remind myself that tomorrow is not “goodbye”, rather “see you later”.

New York you have been wonderful.

Thank you for everything you have taught me. I know that San Diego and Spain will be wonderful but there is truly nothing like living in the big apple.


Until next time 🙂

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Roller Coaster of Life

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Hey everybody! Sorry for not posting in a while – I’ve been swamped with working, working out, and enjoying what’s left of my three weeks of summer break.  Hope you enjoy today’s post.

This past weekend I drove up to Claremont to visit one of my best friends from college, Shelby, and her twin sister, Cassidy for their 19th birthday. We celebrated their last year before entering into their twenties with an elegant afternoon tea complete with scones, chocolate covered strawberries, and tiny sandwiches. After the par(tea) Shelby and I ventured into Pasadena to  grab some FroYo and see Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, which got me thinking. While walking into the Arclight, I took note of the recent security precautions which included monitors in the bathrooms, all personnel on walkie-talkies, and a speech at the beginning of the movie about the recent events in Aurora, CO. Throughout Batman (which I definitely recommend), I constantly found myself scanning all four entrances and thinking about the victims, instead of enjoying the film.  In light of the recent tragedy, I wanted to blog about the preciousness of life, and the impact this event has had on me.

Growing up, I was told Daddy would always come back from the war as I pointed to random helicopters in the sky – he always did, but not everyone is as lucky. I couldn’t imagine how much different my life would be if I had my Mom, Dad or Sister taken away early on like those in Colorado. I can only send my prayers and well wishes to those knee-deep in the tragedy, sitting bedside hoping their son or daughter will wake up, or those grieving their brother or sister amongst the hundreds media feeding upon their losses.

Life is short, shorter than I can convey in words but worth mentioning. I’m almost 20, a fourth done with my life (based on California life expectancy) , and although I’ve seen more than my fair share of the world, I can’t help but think “What haven’t I done?”My life is a roller coaster with no end, I don’t know when the next drop will be or how loud I scream – I’m like a child on Splash Mountain for the very first time.

To answer my question, “What haven’t I done?” I’ll tell you this: I haven’t lived. I’ve been “living” presuming my worth based upon the number of championships beneath my belt, the number of stamps in my passport and number of Facebook friends I have. It’s not about that though. As Dan Millman said in his book about his personal journey (our soccer required reading), “You can live a whole lifetime never being awake” – which is so true.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that from now on, I’ll be living as if my life depended on it, instead of going through the motions, reacting the way I’m expected to act, and doing things half-assed. I will be letting those I love know that they are cherished and reaching out to those who I’ve lost contact with, because God forbid, if any one of my friends or family were to die tomorrow I couldn’t bare to live with myself without letting them know how much they mean to me.

So if anything, give your parents a big hug tonight, text your cousin “Hey” and let a great professor know how much of an impact they’ve had on you because life has a crazy messed up way of working and we can never be certain of when that next big drop on the roller coaster of life is going to be.

Peace and love to all.

Meg’s Recommend Reading of the Week: Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman