The new academic year has arrived! And it’s brought with it all sorts of the little crises that seem like the end of the world for the folks involved, but often can be fixed in just a few minutes by someone (like me) who takes the time to wade into the fray. I love being able to do that, and I love being able to start my day and week with a bunch of items on my to-do list and wipe nearly all of them out within just a few hours.
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
Hi Matt,
I want to say how much I enjoy seeing your daily essays and thinking about you and about Kellie.
Your first three paragraphs evoked a feeling I recall from my time as a professor, including four years as a department chair. That feeling is a sense of skilled multi-tasking, with a stream of needs and demands coming my way from all sorts of directions, and I go, like: Turn, Whiz, Punch, Kick, Turn, . . . Thinking of my kids’ days watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I called this state of being the Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Professor.
Those days are gone now. The visceral thrill of multi-tasking has pretty much gone away, and I now enjoy longer quiet days of thinking and reading and writing and talking with friends.
Just thought I’d share. All the best.
Ben