Across the last few days, I’ve been thinking some more about the passage of time, about types of loneliness, and about where I’m at with them both.
I know, you’ve seen me talk endlessly about how strange time is for me now that I’m on my own. But believe it or not, I’ve got some new things to say on the subject.
In the first two months since Kellie died, I was really focused on how difficult it was to manage those evening hours between nine or ten and midnight or one. I couldn’t really figure out just what caused that block of time to be so excruciating. It always just felt like the hours would drag on and on and that I was more alone than I could possibly imagine around that time of the night.
I think that yesterday afternoon I realized what made that time so hard for me, so I wanted to shed some additional light on it for you as well. Those two months were full of all kinds of massive changes in my life, but one of the biggest was that my parents were living with me for the time being. They offered me more than I can even put into words by just being here—it was truly the kindest thing I can imagine anyone ever doing for me.
And a truth about those two months was this: it’s no secret that my parents go to bed really early (especially my dad). We all have our own circadian rhythms, and the way it works for him is that he gets up really early, has some alone time, then everyone else wakes up for breakfast. After that, my parents often take a nap, get up again for the bulk of the day, take a second nap, then hang out for supper and a couple hours afterward. They usually go to bed around 8 or 9.
So what that meant for me while they were living here is that those hours were the only time in a given day when I would reliably be on my own. I would look forward to that time all day, being the introvert that I am, and then when it arrived I’d start to feel anxious and upset and then spend the next few hours frozen in a rough place.
I think I didn’t hate those evenings because they were empty, I think I hated them because I was alone. I didn’t want anyone to be with me, but I was acutely aware of my loneliness in those hours (more than any other time in my day).
Loneliness sucks.
There’s such a wide range of aspects of the human experience that we can at least agree on, and I think loneliness is one of the common ones (if we stop and honestly think about it).
I don’t mean times when we’re choosing solitude. I don’t mean times when we finally get to let our guard down after a long day of performative adulthood or leadership roles. I mean the times when we desperately need someone else to be there but know that’s not going to happen.
There’s a special kind of loneliness that is linked to a time or a place that we’ll never inhabit again. I feel that once or twice a year when I dream about my childhood in Nasuli, a special place in Malaybalay, on the island of Mindanao, in the south of the Philippines. I know that that version of Nasuli literally no longer exists. It’s a tourist resort now, and even the most familiar aspects of that place now look dramatically different. That pining for a time or a place is hard.
But I think the worst kind of loneliness is linked to a person who’s gone.
That time when you were happiest in your life was special, but it was a snapshot in the whole story of your life. Time is linear, pretty much. Every wonderful (or awful) moment is going to pass eventually. That’s just the nature of the beast. Places are less transient than times, since they’re at least relatively concrete.
Kellie experienced that loneliness for place, too—it really meant something to her that every school she’d ever attended has now been torn down. They just don’t exist anymore. You can have reunions anywhere you want, but if you went to Ashtabula High School, you can never go back and wander the halls and weird basements like our friend Kim does at her school. That place is gone now, just as surely as that time when you sat in the sun and had the best picnic ever and felt truly alive.
That loneliness for a person, though. It’s an unsolvable mystery, it’s a needle in a whole field of haystacks, it’s frustration and rage and fear and not having the one thing that you just know would immediately make everything okay.
You know your high school is torn down. So you might be reminded of it when you drive by, or you might get sad when something triggers a memory from your childhood. But it’s not like the missing of a person.
The smell of them, the feeling of their hair under your hand, the sound of their laugh, the presence of them as you turn a corner and just know they’re there—but they aren’t, and they never will be.
I started making plans for Kellie’s Quaker memorial meeting in earnest yesterday. It’s something I’ve been putting off for five months, because I haven’t had the strength to have that conversation. If you’re wondering what that looks like, it’s not all that different from a typical unprogrammed Quaker meeting for worship. In this case, someone will explain the process and then we’ll spend some time in silence. I know that’s uncomfortable for folks who aren’t used to sitting and thinking, but it’s kind of an important part of the process. Then folks will speak about Kellie and what she meant to them, as they feel led. That’s the deal.
It’s not scary, or something that you need to be nervous about. But it’s important to me that people from within our spiritual community also have the opportunity to think about and speak about Kellie and what she meant to them.
People who aren’t part of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting are also absolutely invited to be there and to speak and to hear what folks have to say about her.
As preparations become more solidified, I’ll make sure anyone who has an interest in being there knows the information to connect and be a part of that.
It’s going to happen in-person in Ann Arbor as well as via Zoom. And before you ask, no—I won’t be in Ann Arbor for this memorial. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I would rather be able to listen and hear and feel what I’m feeling if I’m physically in my own house. Kellie and I have worshipped and learned and been a part of this community for more than four years now, and the majority of that connection with them has been via Zoom. I don’t consider our mode of connection to be any less real or tangible or important than the folks who gather in Ann Arbor in-person. But being able to have my shoes off and my Kleenex freely available is going to make the experience vastly healthier for me.
I’d love to share that memorial meeting with anyone who would like to be there, so please stay tuned.
Last night was a special concert—Kellie and I have really enjoyed spending time at the Music Box in Cleveland, and it was the first time I’ve been there on my own. Joe Pug is a national treasure, and everyone should know who he is and pay him all their money so he can keep writing songs and putting his incredible talents out into the world.
It was also the first concert I bought a ticket for when I was in the deepest depths of my grief immediately after Kellie died. It was at the beginning of May, just about two weeks after her death, when I was looking for anything at all that I could look forward to which would help me survive the summer. Knowing this show was coming has been one (of many) things that has served that purpose for me, and it was really great. As Joe Pug always is.
Here’s Kellie and I at a Music Box concert a few years ago:
And here’s me at the same spot last night (looks like they fixed the lights in that A):
You can see how much the iPhone camera has evolved by looking at those two shots, for sure.
I’m lonely for Kellie almost all the time. Sometimes that loneliness drowns out all the other sights and sounds around me, and sometimes it fades into the background enough to just barely see its outline in the corner of my vision. Last night, I was in a room full of people, but I was still pretty lonely for her. Last weekend in Buffalo, I was in the vicinity of something like 20,000 people at that festival, and my loneliness was pretty overwhelming at a few moments.
I think the moral of today’s story is that loneliness isn’t about being alone, it’s about the absence of something (or someone). That’s an insight I didn’t have before. I also want to point out that I don’t necessarily dread that after-supper period of time in the same way, since I’m without other people for much of the day now. It no longer holds a special sense of dread for me, which is a good thing. Those days sucked.
I hope everyone has a weekend full of love, joy and peace. That’s my goal, and I’ll see you on the other side to let you know how that went.
XOXO,
Matt