What happened?

Feeling my way around my feelings

Mary Vaux Walcott, Untitled (Autumn Leaves), 1874

I’m not really sure what happened. It’s been months since I last wrote something. I didn’t really mean to be away for so long. There were times when I thought about what to say or what to write. It felt overwhelming. Particularly in those moments when Darryl our dog died in August, or when we finally concluded a three year legal saga with former business partners, or when more kids were shot in Maine and nothing changed, or when the world erupted in violence and hatred and bigotry flying in all directions, or the countless other things that have made it hard to sit and write and offer thoughts that might help us, or me, in these strange times. In all of those moments I felt paralyzed and ill-equipped, unable to find words. Unwilling to feel exposed.

Two days ago my friend took their own life. The intervening hours since have left so many of us asking what we missed. What could we have done differently? What didn’t we see?

He was truly one of the good ones, made evident by the outpouring of heartache felt by those who knew him well, but perhaps more poignantly, by those who only knew him lightly. That’s what these sort of people do. They make you feel seen and heard and connected to the parts of yourself you forgot or maybe didn’t want to be reminded of, because, even though it’s not healthy or comfortable to do it, perhaps you’ve grown accustomed to feeling bad more than the effort it would take to feel good again. He wouldn’t stand for that. He needed you to know the good that was inside you.

If you too are feeling low, I get it. Every day the news is worse. And yet, every day we have a chance to see or act differently toward those hurts, the big and the small ones, that seem to be running rampant.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been afflicted with the chronic condition of optimism. A blessing and a curse, she is. Some days it paints the world in rose tint and I struggle to see the harsh realities. But harsh realities abound. And the effort it takes, the often-times wretched, capital “W” Work it takes to remove those optimistic glasses and see the world in its technicolor reality is important. But optimism helps too. It gives me the strength to soldier on in low moments like this one. This one where I sit and see text messages and notifications alerting me to what I already know. A good man died too soon.

So today, broken but with the reminder given to me by my lost friend that optimism is a strength I embody, I decided I’m not going to flap around waiting for the time or the inspiration to write a 10-minute Substack article about something I’ve been chewing on. Sure, those will come and go. But I need this place to write and to share more than long-form expositions. I need it so that these feelings and these shorter but no less meaningful ideas have a home beyond my spread too thin spirit. And I hope that perhaps they meet you in moments you need them too.

Outside the leaves are exploding in color. But what’s special about this is that, in reality, the leaves are not inherently changing. In fact, the vibrant yellows and rich reds I see right now have been there all along. Lingering inside the leaves, chemically covered by the abundance of chlorophyll that leaves accumulate in the strolling, sunkissed days of summer. But now, when the sun rides lower and shorter across the sky, the lack of chlorophyll from its life-giving rays gives each leaf a chance to yield itself to its other colors waiting patiently below the surface for their moment. Here in these autumn days, trees gulp the last bits of nutrients from their bright appendage brethren. Soon the bark of these trees will start to harden itself for winter. In doing so, it will create a barrier between itself and its leaves. That barrier will protect it through the cold, dark days that are to follow. But that barrier will also starve the leaves of the last of their prana. Its leaves, resplendent in their colorful glory, wither and fall. A sacrifice trees make to keep living.

Losing my friend has hit me in ways I didn’t expect. Parts of me obscured by chlorophyll-like optimism are surfacing their pain and their need to be felt and seen. This year has been a year of grieving. And the year is not over. And while I know parts of me are hardening, hardening as a means of self preservation, I will not let that last forever. And I hope you won’t either. Because soon, for all of us hurting right now in innumerable ways, many of which feel completely misunderstood, spring will come.

Take good care,

MV

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