Meg
“It’s okay to not be perfect. No really, it is.”
Meg is an empath; she has a big heart and cares deeply about those around her. She is hard working, and is currently carrying out her childhood dream in her role as a lawyer for the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club. But life hasn’t always gone the way she expected. She lost her best friend, Kaitlyn, to cancer, and though she gives a lot to those around her, her grieving process made her realise that she doesn’t give a lot to herself. Now she is learning the importance of prioritising her own well being, taking care of herself and asking for help. Along the way, Meg has to chosen to live her life to the fullest, for herself, and for Kaitlyn. This is her story.
P: Please introduce yourself!
M: My name is Meg Pirics (she/her). I am 29 years old, and I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I went to college and law school at Marquette University here in Milwaukee. I grew up in Winfield, Illinois, which is a suburb located directly west of Chicago. I have one younger brother, Trevor, who lives in Milwaukee, too! Our parents relocated to Bonita Springs, Florida, when we were both in college. I was not a fan of that decision at the time, but now, I love getting to escape the Midwest winters and spend the holidays basking in the warmth of the Florida sun.
I am a lawyer for the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club (the MLB team in Milwaukee), and my day-to-day responsibilities include proactively providing legal advice related to the Club’s activities and policies and negotiating and drafting contracts and other legal documents for the Club’s business and baseball operations. Working in baseball has been a dream of mine since I was a young girl – my grandpa worked for the Chicago Cubs, so I grew up getting to visit him at games, and some of my fondest memories are the ones my family made at Wrigley Field.
In addition to being a lawyer, I am a program manager and fitness instructor at a boutique fitness studio in Milwaukee called SPIRE Fitness where I teach spin, TRX, and circuit/HIIT-style classes. I spent 2.5 years as a client at SPIRE before auditioning to teach, which is something I never thought I would do, but am so glad I did because it has completely changed the way I see myself, and it allows me to help other people see the best in themselves, too. Aside from that, I love to read, bake, laugh, spend quality time with my family and friends, and snuggle up with my puppy, Bader (named after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg).
P: Describe or define yourself in your own words.
M: I am strong and stubborn, passionate and temperamental, loyal and sarcastic, bubbly and loud, selfless and sassy, fearless and persistent, loving and sensitive.
P: What is your favourite thing about yourself?
M: My heart. I’m an empath through and through, and pride myself on being the kind of person that makes others feels seen, heard, and safe. I truly find joy in making the people around me feel loved and happy, and there’s nothing that hurts me to my core like seeing the people I love experience sadness and pain. I would do just about anything for my family and friends. This year, I’ve been focusing on giving myself the same love and attention that I give everyone else, on reminding myself that taking care of my own needs isn’t selfish. I have a hard time saying “no” and tend to spread myself too thin in an attempt to take care of everyone else and their needs, but that often leaves me feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and under-appreciated. Working on finding this balance has made me so much happier and feeling more like myself than I have in a while.
P: Tell us a story. Have you had an experience that’s defined you or made you stronger?
M: One of my best friends from high school, Kaitlyn, passed away from triple negative breast cancer in November of 2016. She was 25. Her mom, Gina, lost her own battle with cancer just 6 years before. Talk about unfair. I’d experienced tough losses before, but nothing could have prepared me for the heartbreaking, excruciating pain I felt when she died. We’d been friends since we were 13, so we’d spent nearly half our lives building the kind of friendship that’s supposed to last a lifetime. Of all our friends from high school, I always felt like Kaitlyn “got” me the most – we were very similar in the way we approached life, so she was always the person I went to when I needed to vent about school or work or boys or family or friends. Losing her felt like losing a piece of myself, a piece I’d never be able to get back no matter how hard I tried.
I felt so guilty when she died. I was in my third year of law school when she was first diagnosed, so I didn’t have a ton of free time to go home to Chicago on the weekends, I wasn’t there for the book clubs, I couldn’t just swing by for a glass of wine after a stressful day. I made it back for some things, like taking her to a chemo appointment (she showed me her bald head for the first time), seeing her in the hospital after her mastectomy (I hugged her just a little too hard), and celebrating her birthday/brief remission (she gave me Eskimo kisses when she started feeling tipsy). Despite all that, I felt this immense sense of guilt that I wasn’t there more, especially because I realized that the entire year that she was sick, Kaitlyn made the other people in her life her biggest priority. She came to my law school graduation and watched me walk across the stage and become “Meghan Mae Pirics, Esquire” even though she was in the middle of intense radiation that left her in so much pain and discomfort. Looking back, I think she knew her time was limited, even if she didn’t tell us that. When she died, I questioned whether she knew how much I loved her, whether she knew that life would suck without her, whether she knew the impact she had on me.
I didn’t know how to process that kind of loss or those feelings, so I chose not to. Instead, I focused on the things I could control, and channeled all my pain and sadness and anger into other things. I knew she wouldn’t want me to be sad, so I tried not to be, and I got good at burying the “hard” feelings when they’d start to creep back up. As the kind of person who is always there for other people when they are struggling, I had a hard time admitting that my grief was overwhelming, that I needed help figuring it all out. I didn’t want to burden people with my problems. It took losing someone else I really cared about to realize how holding on to all those feelings was negatively affecting my life. So, three years after she passed, I did what I realized was the strong and brave thing and went to therapy. I’m not good at being vulnerable, and opening my life to a stranger like that was so hard for me, but in the end, it was exactly what I needed to be able to forgive myself and finally, truly heal.
I realized that even though Kaitlyn is physically gone, so much of her is still with me. Her strength inspires me to be better every day. I hear her voice in my head when I need her advice. I love harder, laugh louder, and live bigger because of her. I still have days when the grief washes over me, when I miss her so much it physically hurts. I still struggle with knowing that the man I marry someday will never know her and love her the way our friends’ husbands did. But, most days, I can look back at those 13 years together and laugh, not cry. I can appreciate all the ways she reminds me she’s still with me, like when of our songs randomly pops up on the radio, or when she shows up in my dreams to give me a hug. And I can carry her heart with me, honoring her life in all that I do.
P: What is one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
M: It’s okay to not be perfect. No really, it is. So stop worrying all the time, because you are stronger than you know and your life will be better than you ever could’ve imagined it would be.
P: What does being a woman mean to you?
M: It means being unapologetically myself and not being afraid to be loud and messy or to take up space and fight for the things I’m passionate about. There’s a quote from Skye Townsend that I think sums it up perfectly…
“‘She’s a lot.’
You’re right. I’m a lot of woman. With a lot of layers. A lot of personality. A lot of dreams. A lot of ideas. A lot of strategies. A lot of emotions. A lot of love. Yeah, you’re right. I am a lot.”
P: Who is one woman that inspires you? What would you say to her if she were here now?
M: My mom. She is currently a teacher, and has been for most of my life. She was first a substitute teacher and then a full-time teacher at my grade school, and now works at a Title I school in Naples, Florida. Seeing the way she’s impacted the lives of her students throughout her career is simply amazing. My mom has an incredibly unique ability to make her kids feel seen, heard, supported and loved (it’s not hard to figure out where I get it from!). She’s inherently selfless, and even if she doesn’t think that she is, she’s brave. If she were here, I’d tell her that she’s the best (pest). I’d tell her that I am so grateful she is mine. I’d tell her that I am lucky to be like her, and that I hope I can be half the mom she is some day.
