I had a really nice lunch with Lindsay, and that conversation helped. She’s the absolute best.

Here’s the deal:

I’m leaving town tomorrow for a three-day music festival. Festivals haven’t been a big part of my life for a few years now, but they sure were for a really long time. Kellie and I started attending the Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ontario sometime in the late 90s or early 2000s. We went to that each summer for 10-15 years, and that was a huge thing for us. The thing that broke that tradition was when Kellie’s grandmother died. She had been the only one we trusted to watch our dogs, and without her, it meant that any trips we took we needed to bring them with us. Going to Canada felt impossible without a dog-sitter, and so we stopped heading up there. That was a big loss, but Sage and Ivy were far more important to us than going to concerts.

But now Kellie’s gone. And now I have an incredible dog-sitter, as well as a whole bunch of incredible friends who I trust to care for the dogs when I’m not around. So I’m heading to Buffalo for a music festival and that feels very, very odd.

Music (especially live music) is a real source of joy to me. Going to a concert is such a joyful sensory experience—if food at an excellent restaurant is your favorite thing, consider music festivals a banquet or maybe a chef’s tasting menu for me. I was thinking about comparing it a buffet, but I’ve never enjoyed a buffet as much as other people do. And these days, it’s hard for me to think about eating at a buffet as anything other than a game of viral Russian Roulette. Gross.

But music festivals are a chance to watch a bunch of bands, eat some great food, and roam around for several days of just prioritizing the experience. If I don’t like a band, guess what? There are four more playing soon! It’s a special place for me, generally.

A few months ago, I started considering what it might feel like to go to a music festival on my own. It sounded like a stretch for me—I was still very early in my grief, and was trying to figure out what I might need in my life. I didn’t have a dog-sitter, I didn’t have the money for a hotel, and my parents were living with me. I had no clue what life might look like in the future. It was June-ish. I had decided that prioritizing concerts was going to be part of something I wanted to explore. But heading out of town for three days of that experience all on my own seemed like a tall order.

I was researching shows by one specific musician and started thinking about the festival idea again when I saw he was playing the Borderland Festival outside Buffalo in September. Those tickets cost about the same as the solo shows with him, and I would get to see a whole lot of other artists that were also favorites! So I bought myself a VIP pass and trusted that things would work out for me to be in a place to be ready by the time September rolled around.

And now it’s September. I’ll be driving to Buffalo tomorrow morning and going to Borderland for three days of the first music festival I’ve done in at least a decade. 31 bands, and a VIP pass. I’m doing it alone. I have one friend who’s staying with the dogs at my house all weekend, I have a second friend who’s checking in on them on Saturday afternoon, and I have Ashley coming to check in on them Friday night. My ticket and hotel room are both paid for. I’m packed and the car is loaded up. All of those things are true, and yet I’m feeling full of anxiety about this trip! Aren’t brains weird?

I know that I’ve thought through mostly everything I need to solve prior to this trip. I know that it’ll be okay if I forgot anything small. I know that I absolutely love a bunch of the bands that will be playing. I know the dogs will be okay and that I’m not over-extended financially. There’s no reason for me to be nervous right now, but my body doesn’t know that.

I think it’s likely that my body feels like I’m back in mid-June. I feel like it’s so strange to not have Kellie packing (that was her thing). I feel like everything will go wrong and that everything will suck and that I’ll miss my bed and my friends and my puppies and that everything will be awful. But I know none of those things are real, they’re just my brain and body playing tricks on me. I’ve come so far! This is a new situation and a new thing for me. I also have a whole bunch of supports in my life who didn’t exist in the same way back in June.

So I’m going to push forward. I’m going to try and sleep as well as I can tonight. I’m going to do my best to have an awesome time, and I think it’ll be incredible.

I’ll write more sometime this weekend, or perhaps on Monday. But this is a big deal for me. I’ll see you on the other side of this new milestone!

Fingers crossed for an amazing weekend (for you and me),

Matt

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It doesn’t matter to me either way—I’m doing it how I need to do it, with your support or without (though primarily with, thankfully).

The fact remains that five months and one week ago, give or take a few hours, Kellie suddenly died. Sure, she was sick. Yes, we’d been struggling with some mystery symptoms for a few months that will never be explained or explainable. And absolutely, she had had trouble with her health for many years. But none of that made her death any less of a surprise. Not for me, not for her, and not for any of the dozens of friends and family members who continue to mourn her passing.

I count because it helps me to keep track of the passage of time, for starters. I’ve shared with you all the fact that time feels so strange to me since I lost Kellie. Things that used to feel like they lasted forever (like an incredibly boring meeting) pass instantly for me, these days. Things that used to feel like they were over far too quickly (like a peaceful evening at home) now seem to take decades of waiting until it’s late enough for me to go to bed. Everything changed for me when Kellie died, particularly when it comes to time, and if I keep myself situated chronologically by remembering how many weeks and months it’s been since that happened, it helps me keep track of what day it is and even what month or season it happens to be.

A piece of my time-tracking habit is about mindfulness, too. There are so many benefits to our mental health if we can live a bit more in the moment. If you spend much time thinking about it, that makes sense. Anxiety is often a side-effect of thinking too much about the future, and depression is often a side-effect of thinking too much about the past. Mindfulness helps us live in the now, helps us be grateful for what we have, and also helps us use a little intention in considering our place in the universe. It helps us to be a little bit more centered if we’re recognizing where we’re at right now. So knowing how many weeks it’s been in this new version of my life helps me be more mindful.

A third reason I care so much about how many weeks it’s been since I lost her is about my own lack of self-confidence. Maybe I’ll approach it thusly: I have a friend who has always looked much younger than her actual chronological age. She’s in a position of power and authority now, and has been for quite a few years. If you go back a decade or more, she was still in a position of authority, but was continually given less respect by those around her in professional settings, maybe largely because they assumed she was less competent than her peers because they always thought she was a kid. Her own level of competence and skill had nothing to do with how she was judged, but how she was viewed by others definitely made her doubt her own abilities.

When I think about my widowhood, the longer I am in this state, the more I feel I can speak to it with some degree of authority. As one example, in the weeks after Kellie died, I started letting those close to me know that I will never be in a romantic relationship with anyone else. I don’t consider “till death do us part” to be a valid construct for me. It never really has been—Kellie and I are twinned souls, and we fully intend to remain in a relationship for as long as we conceivably can be (and if that’s until the heat death of the universe, that sounds great to both of us).

But I started getting pushback on this intention pretty quickly after her death. And when I say “pretty quickly”, I mean before her celebration of life. They would say it in a variety of ways, but all those ways came down to the basic idea that I am relatively young and so should go out and pursue someone else as soon as I feel the time is right. Someone told me that I loved Kellie so much and treated her so well, and that I’m going to be able to love someone else equally well. Someone said that I need to not make my mind up about this so fast. Someone said that Kellie wouldn’t want me to be alone but would want me to find someone else who could make me happy like she did.

All of those responses were meant to be kind and loving, but all of them ignored the fact that I should have the right to know myself and what I need in my own life. All of them also ignored the fact that nobody but Kellie and I were in this relationship between the two of us, and so nobody but Kellie or I can reasonably say what Kellie or I wanted for the other. In addition, it’s pretty important for me to be able to make some decisions for myself in order to feel that I have some sense of control in my life, especially at this time when I have had so many things happen to me without my permission.

How this relates to the passage of time is that one of the objections that folks have had to decisions that I’ve made for myself (like this one) is that I’m just so new to being a widower, so I’ll surely change my mind eventually, but I just need to be patient and wait until I’ve been in it for long enough. So that means the longer it becomes since her death, the more I feel people will trust me to not be new and fresh to this, and to know what I want and need for myself. There’s also the issue of me not wanting to present myself as an expert in grief and loss if it’s something I’ve not experienced for very long. Making it another week or month gives me more confidence that I feel the ways that I feel and can speak to those things.

Keeping track of time also lets me show myself that I am making progress. And I am surely making progress. I am surviving. I am doing things I’ve never done before. I am finding joy and contentment in all kinds of areas of my life. But it’s easy to forget all of these things in the midst of a challenging day or challenging week. We have a tendency to focus on the difficult to the exclusion of the easy, and to focus on the challenging to the exclusion of the effortless. I want to remember that I’ve made it this long. I want to be reminded of how many things I’ve proven myself capable of doing. And keeping track of how long it’s been since the worst thing that’s ever happened to me helps me do that.

It’s been twenty-one weeks since Kellie died. And I’m still functioning. Somehow. I miss her more than I can possibly articulate to you. But I’m still waking up and breathing and eating and (sometimes) drinking water and (usually) taking my medication and (often) taking care of my work and other life responsibilities.

The funniest part of this entire day, for me, came when I was almost finished writing this post. It’s about how I’ve been keeping track of time (or struggling to do so). I speak openly here about how hard it is for me to stay situated in this moment. I also say that time is weird for me right now. And guess what? After texting ten or fifteen people that it had been twenty weeks, five months, since we lost Kellie, I decided to count. And it was then that I realized I’ve been miscounting for around a month and a half. Last week marked twenty weeks, five months, but I wrote back then that it was nineteen! It is a poetic justice beyond all other potential poetic justices that I get to finish up today’s installment about counting time by saying I’ve been counting it wrong after all. The humor of the universe strikes again. Ha!

I hope your day went well. Mine was surprisingly pleasant.

XOXO,

Matt

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Something I’ve been thinking about today is just how quickly things can change in a life. Of course that’s a lesson which is extra-embedded in my mind these days, but life is fragile even in the best of times. Storms come from the calm blue sky, health catastrophes happen all the time, and a financial disaster could wipe out your bank account on a random afternoon without any predictable reason. We like to tell ourselves that we are secure and that we know how things are going to go, but we really don’t. Almost anything could happen almost anytime, and if we stop for a moment to acknowledge that truth it’s hard to put it back out of our conscious minds.

I think we need to believe that things around are predictable because the alternative is too challenging to keep in our heads for very long.

I was reading more of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking today, and so much in that book resonates with me as a widower. I have lived—am living—through the worst thing I will ever experience, and that changes a person. She says that widows look like they’ve been through something that has clearly changed them and shaken them to their core, and she’s right. I’m not going to say that I deeply embrace each day as though it may be my last, but on an aspirational level, sure. I try. I’m not going to say that I don’t trust other people to be there as supports for me because they’re just going to die too, but sure. The thought crosses my mind more than I’d like.

In conversation with a few friends yesterday, the thought of novelty and what it gives us has come up a few different times as well. For me, it is joyous to eat something new (because it might taste really good and end up surprising me in that way). For Kellie, it was scary to try eating something new, because it might taste really bad and then she would have to deal with that disappointment and stress. So she preferred sticking to the things she knew, while I prefer sticking to the things that might surprise me. I know those surprises might be negative ones, but that doesn’t ruin the experience for me in the same way it did for Kellie. The joy for me of a win on the food slot machine outweighs the stress of a loss, so I keep seeking out those new experiences. Maybe it’s a sandwich, maybe it’s a gorgeous view, maybe it’s a book that gives me new insights into the world, maybe it’s an idea I hadn’t thought of before.

I can’t tell you how many times someone has told me (lately, even) that I have the best support system ever. I doubt it, if only because I don’t think I’m worth the best support system ever, and don’t they have better things to occupy their time with? In all practical senses, I’ve never had a better support system in all my life. The people who surround me are truly special. I am continually gobsmacked by how cared-for I am, and I keep waiting for it to stop. Because worrying about permanence is a thing I do now. But day after day, they’re still there.

Today, after breakfast, we had a family meeting. Coco and Ivy voted to drive to the Mosquito Lake Dog Park, so we did. It was a truly special morning, followed by hot dogs for us all. Here’s Ivy in all her glory. Her faith in me is a constant source of joy.

And here’s Coco. When she’s tired-out, as she was from all her play at the dog park today, she curls up on my chest like she did when she was an eight-week-old puppy. Even though she’s much bigger now, she loves burying her face down into the crook of my neck and going to sleep. It is one of the best things in the world.

After we got home, I had a quick visit from Stacy and a longer one from my mother-in-law. It was nice to see them (and also nice to have the housewarming party with my sister-in-law on Sunday). I was more tired than usual, because that’s my new usual, but I did my best in all those social settings.

We keep moving forward, whether life is fragile or not (Spoiler alert: it’s incredibly tenuous). Because what’s the alternative?

Hugs,

Matt

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This weekend was great, but also didn’t leave much space for down-time, and I’m reallyyyyyy feeling that lack of rest today.

I spent Saturday at the Cleveland Gaming Classic. That’s a convention which happens every year. I’ve never made it there before, and I’m so glad I went! I had the chance to play a bunch of old video games, enjoyed a bunch of cosplayers wearing incredible costumes, and also got a very impulsive tattoo just because I felt like it.

I played Q*Bert on an original Atari 2600 (which apparently came out in 1983, when I was six). I’ve played it before, but it’s been a long time. I played a Fallout pinball game. I played Double Dragon 2 on an NES. I played arcade games and Sega Genesis games and SNES games. It was just all lovely. For an old school gamer such as myself, it was a real treat. And I love my impulsive tattoo! Here’s a pic.

Have you ever seen The Knight from Hollow Knight in a duel with Michael Myers? I hadn’t before Saturday, but I can no longer make that claim.

It’s so fun to see people really put their all into showing off things they’re really passionate about, and it was a really positive environment. Yes, an incredibly overstimulating one as well. But it’s hard to not excited by passionate people.

When I couldn’t bear the passion and the lights and sounds and other forms of sensory overload any more, I spent some time checking out a bookstore on the West Side of Cleveland (Book Brothers, if you’re curious). It was a very calm place to spend some time and de-stress a bit. Books will always be a source of peace and calm in my life, and I’m so grateful that they exist.

My friend Nate then met up with me and we got to hang out and catch up for a few hours. There were only six men in my cohort in grad school, and Nate and I connected right away. I’m so glad we’ve stayed close for all these years. Neither of us had any facial hair when we began at Case back in 2007, if you can believe that. I guess social work just ages a guy/guys?

I also wanted to show off the latest roses on the new rosebush in Kellie’s garden. Aren’t they beautiful? No filter, mind you—it’s so cool to see how different they are in spite of literally growing on the same plant right next to each other. Diversity absolutely rules.

It was an extremely long day for me today, on top of everything else. I saw some counseling clients, did some work for school, drove to the Kent Campus while on a Zoom meeting (also eating lunch), had my three-hour Faculty Senate Meeting, then drove back home (also eating supper), while on another Zoom meeting.

The final meeting of the day was a spiritual exploration meeting with a group of Quakers that are dear to Kellie and I. It’s probably more conducive to deep thoughts about the nature of our existence in the universe to not be on an interstate during the meeting, but sometimes you make do with the time that you’ve got.

I’m so grateful to Ashley (as always) for caring for the girls while I was gone. She’s very quickly become a pretty big part of their lives, and I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without her support.

I’m looking forward to a few much more mellow days before my big weekend plans. I need some rest!

And with that, I’m done for the night. Take care, and you should also get a random tattoo. I think more people should get random tattoos! Get on the bandwagon, people.

XOXO,

Matt

I’ve never had anywhere close to the amount of rest I’m getting these days. Sleep and even unscheduled time have both not been huge priorities for me throughout my life. I’ve always needed less sleep than most folks do, and I’ve always felt perfectly capable of juggling many tasks and responsibilities at the same time. But as I’ve said in the past, this is a time when I’m always in need of more sleep, more down-time, more rest.

We actually headed to bed around 10pm last night, and I literally do not think I’ve done that in twenty years.

Even more than my increased usual/current need for rest, I think my body was probably deeply exhausted from the awful day I had yesterday, and needed to get to sleep earlier to make up for it.

It’s going to be a relatively busy day for me, but tonight I got to spend time with Donna and JoAnna, two friends who have been in our lives for literally decades, and that’s exciting. None of us can remember the last time we were all at the same place together (besides Kellie’s celebration of life) in perhaps fifteen years, so after Kellie died we started trying to plan a time for the three of us hang out and reminisce. It feels pretty historic!

At the time I started working at the now-defunct Ashtabula County Youth Detention Center, starting all the way back in late 1999, it was a real challenge for me to see where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. It was a rough time for Kellie and I. We had gotten married about a year and a half earlier, and I had left the retail world without much of a plan for what came next.

If you want a reminder of just how long ago this was, here’s what that facility currently looks like:

Yeah, it’s been torn down to the ground for years now. Honestly, good riddance.

After a couple more years of working there, I started to gain more and more of a desire to do something with my life to make an actual positive impact in the world (which was something that wasn’t happening there). It wasn’t a healthy place to work and certainly wasn’t a healthy place to be incarcerated. Meals for YDC were made and picked up from Children Services, because they had a full commercial kitchen and were cooking meals all day for the kids who lived in the Receiving Home anyway. I had the chance to get to know a couple folks who worked at CSB while picking up meals, and Kellie and I ultimately decided that I should give working there a shot, since maybe I could have actually done some good in kids’ lives that way, so I took the leap.

This was the first of many times Kellie and I put what would become one of our most important shared career rules into place: When making decisions about what job to take next, our quality of life concerns were always to be prioritized over the money we’d make from that new position. I took a pretty huge pay cut in exchange for the chance to get out of the correctional setting, and it was absolutely the best decision I could have made.

After I had worked at Children Services for a bit, the decision was made to shut down the Receiving Home, create a treatment protocol, and then re-open a few months later as a Residential Treatment Center. Previously, it had been a residential setting for foster kids who didn’t have foster placements lined up for them. Children had to be sent out of the county if they needed residential mental health care, so this was going to make a big difference for kids in our community with serious mental health needs.

Half of my fellow staff from the Receiving Home quit, and 50% new staff were brought on to create our new treatment center. Donna and JoAnna were in that group. That was a challenging place to work as well. At least the intent was to help the kids in our care, which wasn’t usually the case at YDC, so that was an improvement. Part of what made that job bearable for me were the people I worked with, including those two. We have some real stories about the good old days, I promise!

It’s now been around 24 years since then, and we’ve all gone on to get our Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and independent licenses. We’ve all done clinical work for decades now, and have had parallel careers in many ways.

So why the heck have Kellie and I continued to maintain a relationship with Donna and also a relationship with JoAnna, but not gotten together as a group in so many years? That’s what I’m pondering today. I think that’s probably the case with a lot of relationships that we all have. It’s such a common thing to hear people say that everyone wants to prioritize their relationships, but that everyone gets so busy and that it’s just so hard to make that happen.

That’s one of the differences with me and my priorities now—I have to put in the time and effort and energy to maintain these relationships, because otherwise I’m going to be lonelier than I can bear. It’s not a choice as much as a necessity for me.

If there’s a lesson to be learned for anyone else here, it’s maybe this: please text or call or make plans with the people you love. Maybe it won’t work out, and maybe you’ve grown apart in the intervening years since that relationship was a priority to you both. But maybe it’ll be a deeply life-affirming and joy-giving exercise for you. You don’t know until you try. Donna and JoAnna and I had the BEST time tonight!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. Talk to you on Monday.

XOXO,

Matt

I hated almost everything about the day until around 4pm or so. I could lie and say “Oh, it was just a bad morning”, to preserve my good day streak, but that wouldn’t serve any real purpose, so honesty wins again.

We all know that every day isn’t going to be a good one. Everyone has reminded me of this ad nauseam, but I don’t think anyone realizes how bad a bad day feels to someone in my position. It’s not a small thing to entirely lose your ability to cope, even for a few hours. It’s also not a small thing to feel like nobody cares whether you live or die (again, even for a few hours). Neither are any fun.

I miss her, and that’s ultimately the problem. I can’t fix that.

As I write this, it’s Thursday evening. I’ve taken a nap, the dogs and I have eaten a nutritious and filling supper, and things no longer feel utterly hopeless. But earlier, oof. If I need to identify something I’m grateful for tonight, it’s that I feel so bad so infrequently these days. I don’t know how I could survive feeling like that every day for the long-term.

I’m okay, but I wasn’t earlier.

Talk to you tomorrow,

Matt

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Today was an okay Wednesday. And that, my dears, is unbelievable.

Here are, in no particular order, some of the most important things I have learned since that horrible, excruciating, hellish day nineteen weeks ago:

• I can survive on my own. I didn’t think I could, not all that long ago, but I continue to discover depths to my resilience that exist beneath what my conscious mind realizes. It’s possible. I know that, now.

• My dogs are life-savers. Having them both with me during this season of my life has been such a gift. Even on days when it feels impossible, taking care of them and making sure they have food and treats and belly rubs and baths has given me something other than my own grief to think about when I’ve needed it.

• My family love Kellie (almost) as much as I do. The way they have shown up for me since she died is unbelievable. From my dad and sister getting here within literally hours, to my parents staying with me for two months and helping me with everything under the sun, to so many folks getting here for her celebration of life and even to the incredible work on Kellie’s garden in a very short window of time—they have been present, and I’m so grateful.

• Getting help—even (especially) paid help—has made the maintenance tasks within my life something I can bear. The cost has been worth it, and Jessie/Ashley/Amber have all been massive blessings to me. If you’ve considered seeking out someone to help clean/organize your house, to help watch your dogs, or to help manage your coping skills and stress and grief that you’re carrying within your body, PLEASE give it a shot. I don’t know what I would have done without any of those three, but I absolutely know I would be both far less happy and far less healthy.

• My therapist has been so kind and caring and compassionate, and her support continues to keep me going. I will always, always, always advocate putting our money where our mouth is—if we suggest that our clients might benefit from counseling, we need to be brave enough to seek it out and be open about it as well. We only de-stigmatize the need for mental health support if we’re able to be less scared about talking about it not being something only a few people need.

• Kellie was (and is) loved by a vast array of people, and she made a huge difference in the world. It’s one thing to know people love and care about us, but a different thing entirely to see that care in action. She would be astonished to see how that love has been displayed across these nineteen weeks, in particular by so many folks who were less-close to us over the last several years. It has been heartwarming and incredible to see the impacts she has made continue to reverberate in so many lives.

• My friends have helped me way more than I could ever have predicted. It’s a big change for me to spend so much of my day communicating in a variety of ways with folks, but a good change. I’m still figuring out a good rhythm with this, and the best ways I can benefit from these friendships without overdoing it and wiping out my energy (and also without underdoing it and wiping out my joy). It’s a real tightrope most days, but I’m trying, and so are they. I appreciate them beyond my ability to articulate.

• I’m still capable of love and joy and hope and wonder and connection. Many of them are a lot more challenging to access, most days. And being able to accept that difficulty has been part of the process. But they are not out of my reach, and that’s the important thing.

• I can make it through my moments of loneliness, even if that feels impossible in the moment. I just need to hang in there until these moments pass (which they will, eventually).

• I will not die if other people besides Kellie read my writing. I continue to marvel at how okay it feels that I’m putting some words out into the world pretty much every day and yet not dying from embarrassment when anyone reads any of those words. I’m still surprised to realize this.

• Consciously focusing on my feelings during the worst times is far healthier for me than trying to ignore them and ride it out. That’s been the best way for me to process and manage than anything else, so it’s the direction I need to go with it.

As I continue to work to try and have a sustainably happy and healthy life without the most important aspect of my life available to me (Kellie), I thank anyone who’s reading this for being interested in how the process is going and for sticking with me even if it seems like I’m mostly writing for myself, not for an audience. That’s sort of the point, so I appreciate you being here.

Regardless of why you’re here, thank you for being here. Onward!

Take care of yourself,

Matt

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I know that we probably all have a habit of buying things that we don’t need, and Kellie was no exception to that rule. Some of her favorite purchases were notebooks and journals and pens and colored pencils and crayons and markers. She loved the idea of self-expression, and thinking about new ways to do that was always exciting to Kellie.

I wish, more than anything in the world, that she had spent more time WRITING in some of those journals. You don’t know how many empty journals I have in my home, and I deeply, deeply crave the ability to interact with thoughts that she had or things she might have had to say. Because then the massive absence of her in my life can get filled, just for a minute, by something personal she left behind.

I’ve done much more writing, throughout my life, in digital formats. After I’m gone, I know that somebody is going to have plenty to clean up and organize here (though a lot less than after Kellie died). But I don’t know that anyone is going to have the motivation or interest to go through all those old laptops and accounts to see the thoughts I’ve spent countless hours articulating. It’s a lot more likely that they’ll get thrown away or deleted or that those accounts will be allowed to expire, and that’s mostly okay with me.

Sometimes I think about the fact that I’m not going to be as missed by anyone after I’m gone as Kellie is currently being missed by me, and that makes me sad for a bit. I know that loss (and love) is not a competition, and that measuring who’s missed more or less than anyone else isn’t a metric that makes any sense. But this pain that I experience is just so heavy, sometimes. It’s hard to avoid thinking about my own mortality at times, and I can’t say that it’s a good feeling to not have that one person who is in love with me as deeply as Kellie was.

I’ve worn her two wedding rings (one from 1996, one from 2016) on a chain around my neck since the day I got them back from the funeral home. She was wearing them when she died, so they’re the last physical items she touched when she was still alive. I know that the odds are low that anyone will want to wear them after I’m gone, much less my own ring.

What kinds of physical artifacts will you leave behind after you’re gone? Do they fill you with joy, or do you worry about how it will feel for whoever shows up to look at what’s left of your life when you’re not here anymore? It’s pretty likely a combination of emotions, as is true of most things in this complicated and messy world.

I know it’s all just stuff. But it feels really weird to be the only one holding all our stories now. Nobody but me knows the artist we had paint a caricature of Sage at the farmer’s market in 2015 or 2016, and why that painting matters so much to me now. Nobody but me knows about the significance of this lamp, or of the end table, or of the many, many books throughout my home. It feels like walking around through a field of ghosts sometimes, because all those stories are so loud in my heart really late at night or really early in the morning. And there’s nobody to remind about those stories, because they don’t mean the same thing to anyone but me now.

I hate this, but there’s nothing I can do about it. So I think, and I talk, and I write, and I try my hardest not to sink into despair in the quietest times (when those hundreds of stories are loudest, which is pretty ironic if you think about it).

I was so grateful to hear from a friend early this morning while I was writing the first few paragraphs of this pretty sad entry. Her text came in at the exact perfect moment, and that stopped me from crying quite so hard. So did Coco, who chose a great time to hop up on my lap and literally lick the tears off my face. Which, I feel I need to say here, is a task I’m not asking for anyone but Coco to perform. She seems to like the taste, and it sure makes me feel better, so I’m not going to discourage her.

Shortly after that, I heard from someone else inviting me to hang out, so we of course went to Mentor for more tacos. That’s becoming an every-Tuesday thing for me, and I certainly don’t mind. It got my mind off the morning sadness, and I treasure the time I get to spend with people (especially when I’m struggling).

Tonight, a friend who has been promising/threatening to call me for a while asked if I was free for a conversation, and we talked on the phone for an hour, which was really wonderful. Even though I have a call with my parents every day, getting to talk with someone who isn’t my parents is really nice as well, and it was a rare treat to get all that social contact with more than one person today. I really enjoyed it!

I don’t know if I have any deeply-profound way to close out today’s newsletter, other than to say that I’m doing okay. I hope your Tuesday was full of as many loving people as mine was (and if it wasn’t, call someone and try to make it happen for you tomorrow)!

Another day down, and tomorrow marks yet another week without my soulmate.

XOXO,

Matt

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My weekend was really nice, if quiet. When I woke up on Saturday, I felt the sads creeping in. I was determined to outsmart them, and so spent some time doing things outside my house in an effort to keep my brain busy. It worked, thankfully. I spent some time at the lake, and some time at an apple orchard. I took a wonderful nap with the pups and then had a quiet afternoon.

Sunday, I had my Quaker meeting, went to a local food festival, and took another nap. In fact, I’ve been napping every day for the past four or five days. I don’t know if it’s a new trend or not, but having enough time in my day to carve out for one of those has made the rest of the afternoon and evening much more manageable. This damn lack of energy is really a pain, and I need to do everything I can at this point to buy myself more of it. Naps are helping with that.

Today was a day off from my day job due to the holiday, but I saw some counseling clients in the morning and then had the afternoon off. It was an especially quiet day for me today, with very few folks texting or otherwise saying hello. I’m assuming that’s due to their own holiday plans with their families, and trying to think ahead to how I’ll handle that when Thanksgiving and Christmas arrive. It was abnormally free of social contact, and while that’s nice for a day, I’m hoping to talk to a lot more people tomorrow.

I’ve been missing Kellie a lot over the last three days. The missing feels different this time, though. It’s feeling like nostalgia, like memories, and although I’m feeling her absence very acutely, it’s not sending me into the panic attacks that the moments of deep missing were causing even just a month ago.

If you characterize her absence in my life as that space when you’re missing a tooth, it feels unusual. You know it’s not there, and you try your best to work around it but its absence keeps popping back into your mind. You might even be drawn to poke your tongue into the missing space (until it hurts, and so you consciously draw back from that). But when you don’t think about that tooth for long enough, your tongue seeks out the spot without you intentionally meaning to do it and you get shocked and hurt all over again.

For the last four and a half months, I have tried to think about her absence and what it signifies in controlled doses. And when I do face fully into the lack of her directly, it sometimes literally takes my breath away and leaves me gasping and in panic attack mode. Not as much for the past week or two, though, and that transition feels like both growth and progress on my part.

I had a bit of a surreal (and positive) experience yesterday that I wanted to think some more about. I know I’ve discussed here some of the unusual aspects of living in a small community where many folks know one another. I have a good friend who lives and practices in a much bigger city, and who had reached out to me with an ethical dilemma surrounding a new referral that, it turned out, had attended the same church in their childhood as my friend’s partner. That wasn’t an alarming scenario for me at all, due to the many ways in which ethics play out differently in rural areas, and we talked it through. I’m very likely to encounter clients in social settings, or in a grocery store, or even the children of clients when I’m out in public many years after having that therapeutic relationship. But my friend’s situation is very different, and they’re very unlikely to ever bump into a client outside of work due to just how many people live in their vicinity.

This point was hammered home to me in three different interactions yesterday. First, in the midst of that local food festival, I stopped at a food truck and ordered a hot dog. It was served to me by the coroner’s investigator who came to my house after Kellie died and stayed with me while the paramedics did their work. Even though she was very kind (in both of those settings), I was struck by just how weird it was to bump into her like that.

As I continued down the street, someone stopped me and wanted to express their condolences for my loss and tell me how sorry they were that Kellie had died. I was already in a bit of a surreal place due to the hot dog thing, so I thanked them and kept walking. I didn’t know what to say besides “thank you”, but it was really nice to be cared about in the midst of a very busy street festival.

Down the block, I stopped to pick up my actual planned lunch from a second food truck. The owners of the truck took the time to ask how I was doing, to thank me for supporting their small business since they started it, and to tell me how much they appreciated me. When I got back home with my food, I saw that they had literally given me twice the amount of items I had paid for, just out of kindness.

Three encounters with three people (or sets of people) who all knew my situation and who all expressed care and concern and love for me in their own way, within about ten minutes. I know that I wasn’t there to be seen by anybody, and I strongly doubt that 99% of the people on that street yesterday had any idea who I was. I also wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about my loss and about how hard it’s been yesterday. But those three very different interactions all made me feel seen. And if I lived in a community that isn’t Ashtabula County, I don’t think I would have bumped into anyone like that at a similar event.

People can say all kinds of negative things about this community, but I’m always going to push back. Folks here often display more care for each other than you would expect, and that’s a nice surprise to get. Especially on a lonely day.

I hope your Labor Day was full of love and joy and a profound lack of work.

Talk to you soon,

Matt

Now, Fridays are the time when I lick my wounds, take stock of how I’m feeling, and try to make sense of both the good days and the bad ones, with the satisfaction of knowing I’ve been able to make it through another week.

I know that I’m going to spend the weekend ahead resting and relaxing and trying to just do things that feed my soul, so I don’t feel as urgent about making sure to wring every last bit of joy out of my Friday nights.

I also don’t have Kellie here to commiserate with, to debrief with, or to vent to. That doesn’t mean I can’t (or don’t) still share these things with her, but it’s very different now that she’s not able to smile and tell me she’s proud of me.

Several people told me that they were proud of me, today. And one even told me that they’re sure Kellie’s proud of me, which certainly hit me hard. I’m sure she is too, I just wish she could tell me herself.

Here was my view while I ate breakfast this morning. It’s become one of my favorite spots.

I’ve been trying to be intentional in so many moments of my life, these days. I feel like life is so ephemeral, so transient, so fragile. I don’t have any way to predict when everything is about to change. I don’t know whether I’m about to lose someone. I don’t even know what the weather’s going to be when I wake up tomorrow. Though I guess that last one is just because it’s early fall in Northeast Ohio.

It was another busy day of grading, teaching an ethics workshop, and helping to put out a few metaphorical fires. But once I was done, I was done. I took a luxurious nap with the girls and then grabbed supper while watching the sun set over the lake.

I wanted to highlight something for y’all tonight: I haven’t had any awful days over the past week. This is honestly the first time I could make that statement across all the time since Kellie died, and I don’t know how to feel about it.

Obviously, I’m grateful for having so many days in a row which were either good or certainly-not-bad. It would require a special kind of stupidity for me to wish for bad days, particularly because those bad days (when they pop up) are BAD DAYS. I wouldn’t wish those days on anybody, including myself.

At the risk of being cliche, however, it’s bittersweet to be able to report that my days have been either okay or great for an entire week. Of course I want to have good days, and of course good days are a positive thing. That doesn’t help me not feel guilty when I haven’t suffered (because I get to still be here and Kellie doesn’t get that luxury). Survivors’ guilt is a real thing, and it’s a rough thing.

I’ve spent a lot of time considering the deeper symbolic meaning of things lately, and I think that’s probably a result of my brain still trying to make sense of things which can’t really be made sense of.

If you’re wondering how things are going with my book, they’re going well. I’ve written first drafts of all the poems which will be in the final volume. There are forty-five of them. Fifteen poems about our life before Kellie died, fifteen poems about my life in the immediate aftermath of her death, and fifteen poems about life a little bit further away from the loss. I’ve started to make some tweaks and slight edits, and would like to feel brave enough to share them with a few trusted folks in the coming weeks for their thoughts on the work. They’ll probably continue to take shape in those three sections, because that’s the most natural flow of the project for me.

Speaking of symbolism, I think I’ve shared here in the past that I had decided while at Pendle Hill that I needed to write about Kellie and about this grief and loss experience, since (as the widower I encountered there told me) if I don’t try to sort through some of these feelings through my words, I’m not going to be able to write about anything BUT her. That resonated with me, and still does.

It’s hard for me to articulate this, but I have some fear that when I finish these poems and send them out into the world, it will mean I’ve said all I have to say about her. And that that will give others the permission they’ve been waiting for to stop talking about her, stop thinking about her, and move on from her life and her death.

I know that’s not a logical way for me to think. Fear is rarely logical, and is much more gut-based in the way it sneaks up on us from behind. It’s a very The Last Leaf-coded way of processing this stuff, and I know it’s not reality. None of that stops me from thinking it, though.

I got to spend some really lovely time out in Kellie’s garden this evening. As I told a few folks tonight, I miss her a lot more when I’m in that place. I also feel closer to her in that place, and the benefit of that far outweighs its cost.

I’m still here. And today, this week, I’m okay. That’s a good thing.

XOXO,

Matt

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I had resolved to not waste my continued good mood from my massage on Tuesday by letting Wednesday steal it away from me, so I was intentional about naming and identifying awful feelings as they arose yesterday. I did a lot of work and was all caught up, so I decided to capitalize on my good mood by taking an impromptu trip to Buffalo, NY to see our friend Corey and eat a local delicacy. (No, not chicken wings.)

I don’t know if you’ve heard of beef on weck, but it’s a thing. It’s similar to a French dip, but on a specific type of bun with caraway seeds and sea salt. It’s also delicious. I’d never tried pickled beets before, and found those to also be delightful.

We had an awesome time together. Having the flexibility to bring Ashley the dog-sitter over for a random evening so I can impulsively drive a couple hours and a couple states over for a really good sandwich is just another part of this bizarre new life I find myself in. It might sound like a weird thing to do, but it felt perfectly appropriate at the time, and I’m very glad I did it.

I made it through my Wednesday afternoon, during the drive, reflecting on the day that Kellie died and on how I felt that day, along with all the things I’ve experienced and all the ways I’ve grown (or, if not grown, changed) since April. I don’t feel like the same person I was before that day, and I don’t know that I’ll ever feel like that version of Matt again.

I’ve resisted the idea that two people died at that point, old Matt and Kellie, because I hate to think that I’ve lost something permanent other than having lost Kellie. It’s felt to me like such a hopeless thing to say that I’m forever changed, but I’m starting to warm up to that idea.

I hate to accept that something else was taken from me without my permission.

I’ve been worried about this morning’s appointment for about four months. I had a doctor’s appointment in Cleveland, and I had opted not to tell my doctor when she died because I didn’t feel the need to seek out medication to help me sleep better or whatever. As the months have dragged on, I’ve built it up into an ever bigger issue that I never told him it had happened, and that today I was going to have to go through the whole story with him about everything that’s happened since we last met in late March.

Eventually, I decided to send him a message late last night so he could have some time to process the fact that she’d died in a traumatic and very sudden way without me having to tell him that and react to his reaction in real-time. I felt very proud of myself for being (a little bit) proactive, until I arrived at my appointment to find that he hadn’t read the message yet, so I had to tell him everything in one go anyhow.

I made it through. It was oddly cathartic to tell the story from the start, how I felt back then, the role writing has played in my life, about the changes in my routine and how the dogs are doing, along with how my support system has been holding and seeing and being there for me. It was a LOT to go through in a half hour, but I made it through. It gave me a lot to reflect on for the rest of the day, though that’s not a bad thing at all.

It’s been such a huge series of things to absorb, and it’s more than a little overwhelming to me to consider it in its totality. At one point, he asked when I’d gone back to work, and I said it had been about two or two and a half weeks afterward. He thought I was telling him that I had taken four months off work and just gone back two weeks AGO, and was more than a little shocked that I was back to seeing counseling clients and teaching classes within two or three weeks of losing my wife.

That’s something I haven’t thought about in months, but I really think that going back to work as quickly as I did was something I needed to do in order to preserve just the tiniest shred of normalcy I could get. I’ve seen people say they take a full year off work, and I can’t imagine what I would have done with myself and my brain for a year without work to keep me busy-ish. That would not have been the right path for me to take, regardless of the financial hole that would have dug for me.

I’m so grateful that I have jobs that allow me to lose myself in other people’s education and mental health challenges and not focus upon myself and my grief and sorrow for a few hours at a time. My doctor asked how my focus and energy level have been, and yeah—they’ve both been awful. But I expected that to be the case, and neither of those are unusual for someone in my situation. The fact that I’ve continued to function as well as I have in those situations is miraculous. And no, I’m not my old self. I don’t have the same capacity or ability to work endless hours on solving one huge issue. Sometimes I feel like my brain doesn’t even belong to me anymore, when the waves of sadness hit. I cried at four or five random things this morning alone, for no real reason I could put my finger on.

But even though I often feel alien to myself, I’m still trying to live my life. I’m eating some fantastic sandwiches (including an incredible turkey sandwich from Herb & Twine after my appointment). I’m playing with the dogs. I’m reading (or trying to read). I’m playing video games again. I’m listening to tons of new music. I’m talking to some old friends and making deeper connections with some newer friends. I’m writing an awful lot.

I’m determined to make this life sustainable and full of joy and peace and hope. Some days, I can see those things just over the horizon, barely almost within reach. On the days when it doesn’t feel possible to climb over the massive mountain of my feelings, I try to sit and gather myself for a while until I feel ready to shoulder the burden all over again.

I’m not trying to present an artificially sunny version of where I’m at. It’s awfully dark in here sometimes. I’m committed to telling people when it’s especially hard.

These last three days have contained so much more good than bad. I’m committed to telling people when that happens too, instead of being married to my sadness. I’m in love with Kellie, but most definitely not in love with my grief. I’ll always miss her, and will never feel that it’s “for the best” that she’s dead. It’s never going to be that. But I am now moving into a place of thinking about mid-range and longer-term goals, not in daily survival mode. That’s a really important transition, and I’m grateful for it as well.

XOXO,

Matt

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It’s fine to have good days, of course, and this was one of them.

My day started with a massage, and Amber outdid herself (again). It was even more relaxing and felt even better than it did the first time, and I think that’s probably because I wasn’t very nervous today. I’d already met her and gotten a massage from her, so I knew what to expect and knew it wouldn’t be weird, so I could enjoy it from the beginning of the process instead of slowly adjusting to the fact that I was going to have a nice time. I’m so, so glad that I got the referral to Amber, and I am beyond happy to prioritize seeing her every three weeks. If you find something is really helping your life, it’s a safe bet that you should actually make time to do that thing. I’m a real believer that it’s way too easy to forget things, even wonderful things, if you don’t really get something on your schedule and make it happen. My time with Amber is a wonderful thing, and I’m very grateful for her skills and experience and knowledge. Amazing stuff.

I’m willing to bet that a regular massage is something that would help pretty much every widow/er out there—it’s been that life-changing for me. Someone told me yesterday that they love the fact that I can now regularly refill my touch gas tank, and that’s truly what happens.

I ate more tacos at Senor Masa (of course) as well as spending time in a bookstore (and finding some great deals) followed by roaming around Costco (for more great deals). All good things!

I also took a lovely nap.

I have grand plans in place to enjoy my day tomorrow instead of having it be as big a bummer as it has been lately—stay tuned to find out whether it works or not! I’m not in a huge hurry to solve my Wednesday doldrums immediately. Besides the fact that it feels really bad, I know that I hopefully have hundreds or even thousands of Wednesdays left to get through in my life, so I’m trying to pace myself and explore my brain as I can, without putting more pressure on myself to solve this problem immediately. I’m working on it. And maybe I can’t ever “solve” it, maybe it’s just something where Wednesdays slowly evolve into something less difficult for me over time. Who knows? I guess we’ll see!

I’ve been thinking once again about just how grateful I am that I have so many thousands of pictures and videos and other artifacts of Kellie available to me. I came across a totally random video last night of Kellie talking about a dental appointment that went better than she’d expected. I was absolutely riveted, as I always am when I find another video of her that I haven’t already watched a hundred times. I miss her so much that it literally staggers me when I think about being without her. I just miss her.

Love to you all, and thanks for reading.

Matt

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I had a really pleasant and very quiet weekend. It was extremely restful, and although I texted with a bunch of people, I didn’t push myself to do anything especially social. That was good for me, for the most part.

I was able to resist doing any work at all, besides my homework which was due last night. I worked on my crossword puzzle, played video games, watched movies, read (in little bits), and did a little cooking and a little tidying up.

This morning brought one major stressor for me, because I had to go and get a small cavity filled. Maybe that sounds to you like no big deal, but I’ve been incredibly lucky throughout my life. This is only the third filling I’ve ever had in my life, and the first that has been without Kellie there offering support. I just don’t have enough experience with dental work to not be incredibly scared whenever I need anything done at all.

I appreciate all my family and friends who did their very best to reassure me this morning. You were all 100% correct, and I took all of your advice to heart simultaneously, and I survived that procedure with almost no (physical) pain. I didn’t enjoy it, but I survived it, and that’s good.

I’ve been thinking for the past few days about how our human brains like to see patterns. It’s something that often serves us well, like when we’re trying to determine what is a safe environment and what is an unsafe one. It’s the system that makes puzzles appealing to some of us, or also the system that helps us learn the types of people we get along with better than others.

Obviously, as with so many things, this pattern-seeking system doesn’t always work in our favor. When we make split-second decisions about people who are “good” and “bad” people, that mental shortcut can make us dislike or not give the benefit of the doubt to folks who aren’t like us (so maybe we’re talking about those who have different genders or races or socio-economic statuses from us). This pattern-seeking instinct sometimes also goes haywire (such as in folks who have PTSD) and makes them see threats everywhere they look, which is not pleasant.

The way this most applies to me is when it comes to my feelings of loneliness and isolation. I’ll make a few points at the outset, here:

• I know that it makes perfect sense for me to feel lonely, since I’m now alone after having spent most of my time with Kellie for thirty years.

• I know that I have lots of people who love and care about me.

• It’s not an issue of not having anyone who reaches out, either: in any given day, at least a few people always check in, and sometimes far more than a few.

The actual issue, though, is one of perception. By that I mean it’s not a real problem, it’s a perceptual one. I can literally put down my phone rather than answering two or three or four people’s messages, and simultaneously be consumed by feeling completely alone. I know I’m not without connections, and I know I’m cared-for and loved. I know I’m not alone in the universe, just in my house (and that’s only if you don’t count Coco and Ivy).

But in those moments, at least, I feel like I’m all alone. That’s not a huge issue by itself, because we feel all kinds of emotions we like and don’t like during the course of a regular day. When it gets really overwhelming, though, it feels like I’ve always been this lonely and like I’ll always be this lonely. It feels like being at the bottom of a well that will only get deeper. It feels like there’s no point in reaching out to anyone, because it’s like putting a band-aid on a gushing wound. It feels like everyone else has their people but I do not, and will not, and that I shouldn’t even put any effort into it.

The thing is: That’s not true. It’s my mind playing tricks on me. I am not alone without someone talking to me in some way for more than a few waking moments per day. I often wake up in the morning and find a message or two waiting for me, and those messages are so needed and so valuable in my life. I just went back and counted, and across the last 24 hours, I’ve heard from 32 different people via text or messenger, plus others via email. I’ve had three or four phone calls with a few different people. I have far more folks who keep me in their hearts now on an everyday basis than I probably ever have! But that still doesn’t stop me from moments, several times a day, when my mind tells me I’m completely alone.

What I’ve been trying to do for the past several days is consciously push back against these instinctive bad thoughts. I’ve been trying to conceptualize these thoughts as temporary and transient, too. I will not feel this lonely for more than a few minutes, probably. It will probably go away in just a little bit, if I can just hold on. If I’m not able to convince myself through logic that I’m not un-cared-for, I’m hopeful that I can convince myself through logic that I can just wait it out.

If you’ve reached out to me in some way and I haven’t gotten back to you, it might be because I’m busy or hyperfocused on something. It might be because I’m sad. It might be because I’m taking a nap (like today). And it might just be that it feels too hard to respond, because it’s just too challenging a task to deal with in that current moment. I’d ask for your grace on this, please—if you don’t hear back from me on something, nudge me again! Call me again! Text me again!

I know that feels like more work on you than on me, and I promise I’m trying to make these relationships reciprocal (that’s all a part of my long-term plan). I won’t always be in an acute state of grief (I hope) and so I’ll have more capacity someday (I hope). But for now, I may need more nudges from you than usual.

Are there things that you’ve been struggling with that are similar to this, I wonder? Do you tend to believe that actually-transient things are permanent? Have you had any luck at figuring out how to defeat this instinct? If so, I’d love to hear about your experiences with this, as I try to find my way through the oft-tangled thicket in my own mind.

Thanks for being there, thanks for reading this, and thanks for every bit of your care and love.

XOXO,

Matt

It started badly—or at least unhappily—when Ivy accidentally fell off the bed, which woke up Coco, so when she started barking that obviously woke me too. Before 6am. So this marks the third day this week when we got up way too early. I had a rough couple of hours that mostly consisted of me sitting and wondering why I even bother with anything. What’s the point of a routine, why go to work or do laundry or take care of my bills, or whatever. It was a rough time. What I needed to do was stand up, take a shower, take my medication, and eat breakfast. Once I’d done those things, I felt considerably more able to care about anything else. It was an important reminder that I don’t have to feel passionate about eating or showering or taking my medication, but I need to make them happen anyway.

I worked for a few hours, and got some good things accomplished before 9am. Which was, again, four hours after I got up, ugh.

Jessie came and did her thing, and I got reminded of how happy it makes me when I walk around my house after she has cleaned it every week. I just marvel at the clean smell, the little touches and flourishes she puts into her work, and how well-organized she ends up making my space. I try my best throughout the week, but when she’s spent a couple of hours here, my house is genuinely at its best. I had to text her later this afternoon to tell her just how much I appreciate what she does for me.

A friend came over just to bring me some apple cider, which she bought because she wanted to make me happy. That reminded me of how much it means to me when folks think about me even when I haven’t reached out to them.

Then I went to lunch on a patio with another friend, so we could enjoy the beautiful weather. I’d already spent a little time at a park next to the lake, which was lovely. My time spent with this friend reminded me of how much I love spending time with people who love me and also love Kellie. I’ve seen a lot of folks who find themselves full of despair after a few weeks or months pass and they get told by their support system that they need to stop mentioning their lost partner all the time and try to move on. I don’t have that problem, and it’s incredibly meaningful to me when I can reminisce about her with someone without them getting uncomfortable and changing the subject.

After that, I went to my primary campus and spent a while troubleshooting some tech issues with one of the social work adjunct instructors. She’d had some trouble with the microphones in the room during her first class this week, and I was glad to work through the glitches with her and help her get more comfortable with the different system in her new classroom. She was so grateful for my help, and I was reminded of some of the really challenging times I had while working for a few different universities back when I was an adjunct myself. I don’t see it as a heroic thing for me to dedicate a few hours to a task like this, but it can be a role that comes with very little support. It’s pretty important to me to not treat our adjuncts that way, because I remember how hard that can be, and also because I know how much that affects the student experience in the end. I could not appreciate all the social work adjuncts more, and there’s no way I could teach all these classes without them. They’re incredibly important to the student experience in my program, and I cannot tell them enough how much I appreciate them. A little support isn’t anything compared to everything they do for me.

When that was done, I played with the dogs and relaxed before deciding to go to Cleveland for a limited-release mac and cheese doughnut at Brewnuts (along with a freshly-squeezed lemonade).

I also browsed at Visible Voice books again, and was once again struck by how much I love their upstairs area. It’s perfect for chilling and reading a book. My time in Cleveland reminded me of the last time I went to Brewnuts, with Kellie and another of our friends, after a great day at the Cleveland Flea. That was a special time, and the memory made me happy.

Later on, still another friend sent me a wonderful video of her and her kids singing their version of The Losing Side by Grace Petrie (the last song we played at Kellie’s celebration of life). She spoke about how the song makes her think of Kellie and how much she loves her and tries to be like her—this whole exchange was so precious to me. It reminded me that Kellie’s legacy continues to live on in so many of us, not just in my heart and mind and soul. I cannot tell you how often I start to think that I’m the only one who still remembers and treasures Kellie, but that is absolutely false.

So from the darkest depths to the greasiest of foods to the warm glow of love and support and gratitude, it was a day full of reminders. Full of feelings, too. And now it’s time for the weekend, and with it, rest.

Take care of yourself this weekend. I will, too, if I have any say in the matter.

Matt

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Well, probably a bunch of things. I think that pretty early on, the sheer physical toll that all the crying took on my body contributed to tiring me out. The changes to my sleep pattern did as well. I told someone yesterday that I practice intuitive eating now, but for sleep (I go to bed when my body wants me to, and then wake up when my body tells me it’s time). And that works a lot better for me now than it did a few months ago, without a doubt.

It’s funny, for years before Kellie died I had a problem with revenge sleep procrastination, on and off. If you haven’t heard about that, it’s this thing where you feel so overly-busy during the day that you unconsciously put off going to bed in order to push back against the need to sleep. Kellie always needed a lot more sleep than me, but we were never one of those couples who were okay with having separate bedtimes. When I was up late, so was she (until she fell asleep and I had to wake her up to go bed, at least). I’d wake up in the morning with an alarm, and then wake her up as well. So it was my body that dictated how late we stayed up and what time we got up in the morning, which doesn’t feel very fair to me, looking back from this vantage point.

I didn’t want to stay up, necessarily. I didn’t particularly want to do anything important or fun, it was just that my brain wasn’t switching off until super late. On the weekends, or when we took vacation time, I might even keep us up until three or four in the morning, which is pretty ridiculous for grown adults.

Now that it’s just me, I could actually stay up exactly as long as I want to and not have to feel guilty for doing it—and yet I usually head to bed hours before Kellie and I would have. And you also know that I wake up on my own, several hours before Kellie and I would have. The only times I need to use an alarm are when I need to drive a long way for an early meeting or something and want to be positive not to oversleep (even though I haven’t slept through an appointment for several years, it’s embarrassing enough to not want to replicate).

All of that is to say that my sleep patterns are a hundred percent healthier than they were before Kellie died, and that Kellie would have loved this. Especially going to bed at a reasonable time. And the naps—she loved naps, and I almost never agreed to take one. But now? At least a few every week, though I don’t take one or two per day like some people I know.

Someone suggested to me that they thought it was natural age-related changes in my sleep habits, but I strongly doubt it. Otherwise it wouldn’t have perfectly lined up with her death.

I’m not pushing back against any of this anymore. I like going to bed when I’m tired, and I love waking up early every morning. That’s all fine.

I just wish I didn’t get so wiped out every day. Maybe as time goes by and I am less-viscerally affected by the loss of Kellie, my body will want me to go back to staying up to an absurd degree. But I don’t think so. This feels like another one of those changes that’s happened to me and that won’t ever go back to my previous normal.

I’m not spending hours crying every day, so those physical aspects aren’t still tiring me out to the same degree. It’s an emotional thing that is translated over into my physical body, and it’s still really hard for me to adjust to.

This is a pretty common thing for widow/ers to experience, and I see plenty of folks talking about it online. It’s hard for me to articulate to you just how much more rest I need than before, and also how much more rest I’m getting than before. But it’s never enough.

I walked into our bedroom for a second to grab something this evening, and since the blinds were closed and only one lamp was on, the room was a lot darker than usual. And in the shadows, I could only see our bed out of the corner of my eye. For a second, I thought Kellie was lying there asleep. It’s scary how easy it was for me to believe that was true. Of course she wasn’t peacefully resting in our bed. I don’t honestly believe she visited me in some way, and I wasn’t creeped out about it either. It was just like a glimpse into that other hypothetical dimension where she never died back in April and was still here, just fine, taking a nap.

Even though it’s been a few hours, I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I don’t have to put a label on that feeling, I know I don’t. I guess I’m more happy for it than not, I just wish it happened more often. I’d love to see her out of the corner of my eye all day long, but that hasn’t come to pass.

Wanting a thing doesn’t make it happen, as I have sure had to learn the hard way.

Love ya,

Matt

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Yeah, another Slump Day, so what else is new?

It’s important to me not to be setting up rituals around these Wednesdays that might persist for the long-term, because then I worry I’m cementing some of these challenges for myself more than I would otherwise be if it were more an organic thing. Setting bad habits in stone is a concern for me that I’m trying to avoid.

I had a really productive morning, and then around midday started feeling odd—so I figured I needed food. That didn’t help, so I tried caffeine. That didn’t help either, so I was kind of just stumped for a few hours. I even tried thinking about times this week that I’ve been around other people, in case I’d gotten the flu or even COVID from someone. It’s just been the strangest feeling.

I realized somewhere around 2pm that duh, it’s Wednesday.

And weirdly, just the knowing helped, as it usually does. Making the fact of Kellie’s death a real and concrete thing in my mind on a day like this tends to make the bad underlying body feelings dissipate somewhat, which I’m still not used to, somehow.

Even after eighteen weeks, four and a half months, 126 days, this all still feels awful (at least a considerable chunk of my week does, anyway).

Today, I felt a ton of weight on my shoulders, actual physical tension in my body increasing over time to the point where it felt like had a weighted blanket draped over my back that got heavier and heavier over the course of the afternoon. That’s a new one for me, or it’s a new one for my conscious mind anyway.

It’s not a matter of not caring enough for myself, either. I did a really excellent job of self-care and rest on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. None of them were rough days, and I thought I had built up some sort of savings in the self-care bank, just maybe—but nope, that’s not a thing. Sadly.

I was really keyed in on how my body felt throughout those few hours, and particularly the 4:00pm hour. The weight I just spoke about gradually eased off my shoulders from about 4:20 until 5pm. By 5, I felt almost normal (or whatever normal is, anyway, these days).

I made a concerted and intentional effort to reach out to some of my supports this afternoon, and I got a variety of responses, all of them really brilliant and also deeply supportive. It’s so good for me to ask for help (I suspect it’s that good for all of us to ask for help). It’s so conditioned into us that we should try to be self-sufficient. Or maybe that’s a male thing. Or maybe it’s an introvert thing. Or maybe I’m just a weirdo, that’s certainly a possibility as well.

One of my friends talked to me via FaceTime for almost an hour and a half after work today, so that I would have someone to talk to, and so she could make sure I was okay, and because she enjoys talking to me.

Also, my therapist said that she loves my friends (and that it’s a testament to the friend I am because I have them). I love them too.

I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow.

XOXO,

Matt

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• I helped several social work faculty problem-solve emergent issues (and checked in with everyone who had their first class today).

• I did some more cleaning and organizing in my office (it’s a big job, but I’m starting to make a dent through shredding a bunch of old papers, if nothing else).

• I took a lovely nap with the dogs.

• I spent several hours writing, mostly poetry.

• I started a new thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle because the one I worked on this weekend was bothering my brain. But I got the entire outside done for the new one, so that’s progress.

• I finished binging the most recent season of From so that I could cancel MGM+ (Kellie and I had watched the first episode of this season before she died, so it took me a long time to feel okay with watching the last nine without her).

• I cancelled MGM+.

• I cooked and ate several meals.

• I bought several new albums and spent time listening to them while trying to read.

• I took out the trash for tomorrow.

• I spent an appropriate amount of time mourning Dolly Parton, a true legend.

• I said a word of thanks that Kellie didn’t have to be here to see Dolly die, because she would have been so, so devastated. As should we all be.

I think that’s a lot to get done in one day, and if you don’t agree, that’s okay too.

That’s it for today. Have a great night, and get some rest. That’s my plan as well.

Talk to you soon,

Matt

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So that’s how my day has gone—jumping from fire to fire, trying to be a calming force and offer a sense of perspective and help solve this issue and then this one and then this one. I often thrive in a crisis environment (which is one reason I tend to really enjoy helping out in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic loss and offering clinical supports in the midst of a crisis). The fast-paced decisions and triage are both very fulfilling to me in a way that long-term treatment sometimes is not. I like knowing that I made a concrete difference to someone today, in that way, in that moment.

I also like being the calm in the midst of a storm, and juggling a huge number of tasks and conflicts and crises. My brain tends to thrive on that. I’d been a bit concerned that I no longer have the capacity for all of the chaos that sometimes comes at the beginning of a school year, in the midst of this season of loss. But it appears that those concerns were unfounded, because I really enjoyed my day today.

I also got to grab a much-needed coffee with a friend this evening. She brought me lasagna and lentil soup, as well as a book! I want to make very clear that I would absolutely accept any food and books from anybody who desperately wants to cook for me and/or make me read a book that matters to them. I can’t promise I’ll make it through the food or the book, but I can promise I’ll try.

We spoke for a while about the strategy I’ve been trying to put into place wherein I’m widening my friend group and asking for help when I genuinely need it. That got me thinking about how reluctant I have been for a really long time to “inconvenience” anyone other than Kellie by asking for support. Like my friend said, it’s a big change to go from feeling you’re pretty self-sufficient to having your illusions pierced and needing to admit that you are NOT self-sufficient (and maybe never actually were beforehand, either?) If a heavy piece of furniture needed to be moved before last April, I would have rented a dolly and figured out how to maneuver it by myself or with Kellie’s help. If I needed to haul a big load of something to the dump, I would rent a truck and just take a long time to carry it on my own. I did just that about a month before Kellie died.

Only now, I don’t have the luxury of saying “Leave me alone, Kellie and I don’t need any help”, because I DO need help. And because she’s not here. It’s just me, trying my best to be happy and healthy and make it. So that means reaching out for help. And if “reaching out” means telling people I’m lonely, then so be it. Vulnerability and the lack of control that go along with it are probably big reasons for me to not be comfortable with asking for help, but you know what? I am not in control of most of my life right now, and I do not have any comfort that avoiding vulnerable situations will still get my needs met. So the sacrifice I have made (through this newsletter and in my life in general) has been to let my fear of vulnerability mostly go by the wayside. There are worse things than being seen, and so here you go: see me, and I’ll push past my momentary discomfort about that in any way that I can in order to keep surviving.

This weekend was restful in a hundred tiny ways. I watched several movies, I touched base with friends and family, I started doing a jigsaw puzzle for the first time without Kellie, I read and played video games and cooked a long-time favorite meal for myself, even though that involved pushing through the memories and also scaling down ingredients significantly so I didn’t waste a ton of food.

I missed Kellie lots of times this weekend. I’ll just find myself still believing, in some hidden part of my brain, that she’s just out of the room for a moment and just about to come walking back into my life. Or when I’m heading home from picking up groceries, there’s a split-second when I walk into the living room and expect her to be here, sitting on the couch, smiling up at me and saying “Hey!” When that happens, it always breaks my heart for just a second, and then I move on with my day.

It happens a lot, but the overwhelming grief doesn’t stay for hours and hours anymore. I’m not misguided enough to miss it, I don’t think I get some kind of medal for suffering more. She doesn’t want me to hurt as much as possible, and I don’t feel guilty for having fewer times when I’m completely incapacitated by the weight of my loss. It’s still there, just less all-encompassing.

My quiet weekend was something I needed, I think. The weather is feeling more and more like fall, and that’s a good thing. The change of seasons is a reminder that I’m changing all the time too—we all are. I had a conversation with one of my clients today about the fact that we’re fooling ourselves if we convince ourselves that the world is changing but that we aren’t. Nobody and nothing in the world is ever static! We are literally all changing all the time. The universe is changing all the time, too.

So here’s your reminder this evening: change happens, and sometimes change feels like the worst thing that has ever occurred in the history of the world. And it’s allowed to feel that way and BE that. There are good things that happen, too, and both can be true. This flower fell off one of my hibiscus bushes in the backyard (and I rescued it as Coco tried to have it for a snack). It’s so tragic that something this beautiful has fallen onto the ground and will soon shrivel up and be gone from the world. It’s also so beautiful to have in my house for a day or two, and gives me joy to see it, even as I know in my mind that its death is a sad thing.

Kellie was here for 49 years, and then she died. She didn’t get to be here on this planet long enough, and the big and small ways she impacted the people around her are going to echo for a long time, even though she’s not here anymore. Today, this flower has been reminding me of Kellie.

Reminders like that that are something to be treasured, I think. It reassures us that our pain is something which is also transient, not just our joy. That gives me at least a bit of comfort on the rough days. I know they won’t all be rough.

I hope your Monday has gone as well as mine, and I hope you’ve got something to give you some peace and happiness this evening.

XOXO,

Matt

It’s nearly midnight on Friday night, and this week has been quite a journey.

For the past three days, I’ve gotten up around 6am and worked until past 10pm. The week before a new semester starts is always chaotic and full of meetings and last-minute prep and problem-solving for all kinds of issues that nobody realized existed until that very moment.

And also problem-solving for issues that you’ve been putting off for six months until you “had the time to deal with them”, but when that time never materialized you just waited until the very last possible moment. Plenty of those as well.

I also somehow found the time to drive out to Mentor for a second round of tacos from Senor Masa (the chicken was incredible, y’all).

All of that is to say that I am officially ready for the Fall Semester to begin on Monday. I’m teaching three classes this fall, and they’re all tweaked and adjusted and live for students to access as of tonight. I’m taking two doctoral classes this fall as well, and they’re both open to me as well (though I’m leaving them alone until Monday). I have two new adjunct faculty members who are teaching classes in my program for the first time this semester, and I feel like they’re both ready to go. I also have several established adjunct faculty members who are teaching more classes this semester than ever, or who are teaching classes they’ve never taught before. All in all, it’s a huge amount of transition. This is the first semester in the last four years when Kellie hasn’t been teaching in my program, which required a lot of shuffling around of classes, particularly because I’m trying to be kind and give myself grace rather than offering myself the kind of challenges I’m usually looking for.

Everyone has stepped up and gotten oriented and done the work to get ready. I’ve spent several hours with several of them this week, and I’m confident that our students are going to have a great semester with this team teaching them. I really am the luckiest program director ever to have such an incredible group of faculty who are excellent social workers and are also really passionate about teaching and imparting some of the skills and knowledge they have to the next generation of folks. I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to work with, genuinely.

My program started with a few meetings that were held almost exactly seven years ago, through the fall of 2019. It was just an idea back then, and has now turned into something truly amazing. It’s such an awe-inspiring thing for me to look back over notes from those meetings and see what it’s all become. And we’re just getting started! We should hopefully receive initial accreditation in October, which will represent a whole lot of money spent by the university, hundreds of hours of work, thousands of pages of documentation written, and a bunch of people putting a whole lot of effort into making this thing a reality.

We have more than 150 majors (approaching 190-ish, give or take)! Students taking social work classes this fall are coming from 21 different counties! Our in-person classes have expanded to six different Kent State Regional Campuses! We have 29 students entering field placements, our biggest group ever! And 100% of our students who have taken the social work exam have passed it on their first try so far!

We have dozens of students who have graduated and become licensed social workers and who are out there making a real difference in their communities—and it all started with an idea. Sometimes I sit and think about that—how many really great ideas have people had that they’ve never followed through on? How many of them have YOU, yourself, had? It’s a whole lot easier to look back on that idea from this side of it, seven years later, than it was seven years ago to visualize it turning into this whole huge structure that is living and breathing and educating a ton of people in actual tangible ways. I don’t know how we’ve made all these pieces fit into place, but we have.

And I know this is a recurrent theme for me, but at the risk of boring you all, I just find myself so grateful for being right here, right now, getting to do this exact thing at this exact moment in time.

I wrote a letter to my students this time last year, and published it on this Substack. It’s still up, if you ever want to go check it out. In that letter, I spoke about all the uncertainty of the higher education landscape in Ohio as a result of the Ohio GOP passing sweeping legislation which has caused deep harm in our colleges and universities. I spoke about how we will all continue to teach the things we need to teach our students in order to make them good social workers, despite the legislature trying their best to intimidate us into shutting up. I spoke about how I’m going to follow the law, as ridiculous and awful as it is, and still provide students with the best possible social work education I can. I think I’ve done all those things—we’ve done all those things.

I knew last academic year was going to be a tough one—but I didn’t know WHY it was going to be so tough. My preparation did not take into account the possibility that Kellie would die midway through the year and that everything in my life would change (mostly for the worst), but I’m still here. Getting ready for another year to start. Considering how far I’ve come.

And, above all else, missing her.

Enjoy your weekend,

Matt

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I got up at 6 (after sleeping for less than six hours because Coco was full of energy at bedtime and needed to play, due to me working so long yesterday).

I was out of the house and on the road before 7, then had meetings at another campus until almost 1, and made it back home for another appointment. Then I went over to my home campus to work with a couple of social work adjunct faculty and help them get ready for the semester.

Got back home by 6:30, spent time with the dogs and ate supper, and then worked until 9:30pm. At that point, I texted a couple of friends that I was frustrated and grumpy and hungry and thirsty. This served as an accountability reminder for me, and motivated me enough to eat and drink the following splendid and nutritious snack:

• One (1) piece of cold chicken lumpia.

• One (1) cold hot dog.

• One (1) hard-boiled egg.

• A few (3) sips of Dr. Pepper.

• A large (unmeasured) amount of water.

Consider this your recipe for wellness for the evening. It was the best thing I could pull together in the midst of my grumpiness. It would really, really help if I could remember to eat and drink more often. Hyperfocus on tasks has its drawbacks, and this is definitely one of them.

In addition to my work, today I’ve been thinking about some of the conversations I’ve had with some of my supports lately. I’m really grateful that I have so many people I can fire off a text to and get a very helpful response within a very reasonable amount of time. That’s new to me, as I never would have reached out to most of these folks before Kellie died unless there was something pretty massive going on.

My threshold for personal crises (or at least for a situation that would be helped by introducing a buddy to the mix) has definitely gone down, and so it’s very fortunate for me that my numbers of said buddies has definitely increased dramatically. If I had just increased my need for support and not also widened the circle of those willing to provide that support, it would have really taxed the time and energy of those few folks.

So, again, thank you. I’m so grateful that I have you all, in whatever capacity you’ve served me in thus far. Please know that I appreciate you.

It’s been nice to be able to have some conversations on the phone or in-person lately, as well. The majority of my requests for support come via text message, and so most of my non-work interaction with all of you is via text. That’s meaningful and real and helpful, but I’ve started trying to ask for a few phone calls or coffee meet-ups or whatever, as my friends have the time. It just sometimes hits different to hear someone’s voice, you know?

On Tuesday, I got to spend that wonderful time with Margot. Today, I got to have a conversation with Jill. And yesterday, Tanya called me rather than responding to a text from me. This afternoon, Nate did the same thing! Writing it all out like this, it actually looks like a lot of talking to people. Maybe I’m just feeling lonely tonight?

I guess my point in mentioning this is to say—just as I’ve started wishing I could have more voice conversations with more people, it’s started to happen this week without me even asking. But consider this me asking! Lots of people have said to call them anytime, but I feel weird and intrusive about doing that. Everyone says that people today hate to get phone calls, but not me.

Here’s an open invitation: anytime you feel like calling me, go for it. If I’m busy or feel like solitude, I just won’t answer. And if I’m not, it’s going to make me feel so much better. A text is also super valuable to me, and I’m not looking that gift horse in the mouth, I promise. But do you want to hang out sometime?

I talk with my parents every day, pretty much, and I would just also love to talk with you too.

I’ve started singing out loud to myself around the house, and that gives me a chance to hear someone’s voice! No, I do not consider that a mental health concern.

Today, my biggest reminder of Kellie came with supper. We get food from a local private chef’s business sometimes, and my order tonight was a lovely shortrib pierogi entree. Something about that item had been on the edge of my memory for a few days, and so I finally went back and looked. Kellie and I had both ordered the same entree back in March, the last time the chef offered it on her menu. I’ve since remembered an entire conversation Kellie and I had over that meal, about how much we both enjoyed it. I’d even written a text to the chef afterward letting her know it was excellent. That dinner was 42 days—six weeks—before Kellie died. We had no way to know that the next time I ate it, I would be alone. That led to a bunch of feelings.

I miss her, that’s all.

One more long day. I’ve got this. Sort of.

XOXO,

Matt

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