Short and Sweet

Hey you! Yes, you. The person reading this right now. How’s it going?

Me? Oh, you know. Just doing my thing.

Easiest. Substack. Ever.

Get some rest (I know I am),

Matt

Okay, just kidding. I made it back home! I didn’t sleep well the past couple of days—being away from home has left me with a surprising amount of homesickness. I’ve missed my bed, I’ve missed my parents, I’ve missed my house, and most of all, I’ve missed Coco and Ivy. Those two have been through something rough with me, and we’re family. (And yes, of course my parents have as well.)

I’m exhausted. I couldn’t shut my brain off enough to go to sleep last night, so around 1:30am or so I started packing and cleaning up my hotel room. The plan was for me to leave for home first thing in the morning. At some point I realized that they had been warning us to return our key cards to the conference (room and meal) otherwise the school would charge us a $50 fee. I ultimately decided I might as well go back to turn in the keys. When I was there, I figured I might as well do the worship sharing session at 8:30, then I decided I might as well do the Bible study after that, and then I stuck around for a workshop about conflict management within Quaker meetings until noon. At that point I did finally leave.

I’m proud of myself for sticking it out as long as I did, even though the event doesn’t end until midday tomorrow. I had some meaningful interactions with folks in the time I was there this morning, and I’m really glad I was there for those. I’m really glad I was there for LEYM in general (and it’s not the last time I’ll attend). I just couldn’t do more than I did.

I stopped to check another independent bookstore off my list (this time Snowball Book Shop in Barberton). I didn’t think the store was worth the drive, honestly. They advertise that they’ve got the largest stock of used books of any store in Ohio, but it was a pretty small space, and they weren’t organized in a very easy-to-decipher way (most novels were just alphabetical by author, which makes it really hard to find things you weren’t intentionally searching for). The bright spot of this one was that they do have a few new or mostly-new books which they don’t charge face value for, so I got a hardcover book that’s only a year or two old at a very reasonable price.

I’ve been thinking a lot this weekend (that tends to happen when I’m busy and also when I’m not busy, so pretty much all the time). I’ve been wishing there was an easy way to let people know my situation (when it comes up in conversation) without instantly earning the pity of anyone within earshot. It’s not that I’m looking to tell everyone that I’m a widower. But when someone asks what I do for a living, the next question is often whether I’m married or not. I am, but I then have to say that my wife died two months ago. The next question EVERYONE asks is what killed her. At that point, I have to say something about how nobody truly knows. By this point of the conversation, people are openly crying and wanting to hug me and stuff.

It just all leads to an awkward and frankly pretty awful interaction with people, over and over and over again. If they already know me and haven’t seen me for a while, their opening line is usually “I heard about Kellie—I’m so sorry—how are you doing?” Again, I’m striving to be honest. So any answer I give leads to all kinds of follow-up questions, and they often end up crying in this scenario as well.

I’m not going to let people off the hook in these interactions. I feel pretty strongly about this. What I think a lot of people would love is if I said, “I’m doing pretty good, actually” or even “I’m okay these days, thanks for checking in.” For me to say those things, however, would be me taking ownership over the other person’s comfort level and trying to care for them and decrease their upset feelings. And since I’m trying to not take responsibility for other peoples’ feelings about my loss, for my own sake, I need to let other people feel sad. Hell, I feel sad too, so join the party.

I’m not trying to be insensitive about others’ experience, but if I’m going to be honest and congruent here, then that requires us all to be a little bit uncomfortable.

I’m sorry that this situation makes us uncomfortable. It sucks and feels bad, and so it makes us all feel bad. Let’s hope that doesn’t last forever.

I’ve had my adventure in Ashland, so now it’s time to be back home for a few days and decompress. Now I’m REALLY done for the night.

Be safe. Love y’all.

Matt