Posts tagged Matty
Makin' Latex
KINK ENGINEERING: The life and times of a latex saleswoman...
On the road - take 2.
It’s seldom that you get the opportunity to reclaim a bad memory. That’s exactly what I’m doing this week. It was almost 5 months to the day that Matt passed away while I was on a roadtrip with my dad.
Today we’re leaving for South Carolina where I’ll be running the Tough Mudder on Saturday morning. It’s a challenge that would have been unfathomable a few months ago. But a lot has changed since then.
I’m bringing a bit of Matty along with me. On the packet of ashes is something he said to me in a dream a few days after he died. He’s going to be in my back pocket through the race (he always said he’d have my back no matter what) and I’m going to scatter his ashes afterward.
When I get home next week, it will finally be time to start designing again.
Happy birthday Matty.
Today is Matty’s birthday. He bought us tickets to go see Cirque du Soleil tonight way back in March. It was a splurge even then so we said it would be a birthday/anniversary present. My birthday was a month ago. Our 5-year anniversary would have been September 14th.
I’m going to go to the show tonight, and I’m going to have a good time. It will be bittersweet, but it’s my birthday present to Matty - a promise to keep having fun, to keep seeking out joy and to try and find adventure wherever I can. It’s what he would have wanted, and it’s what I continue to want. I guess that’s why we were so good together.
To everyone who loved Matt - have a drink to his memory today, and remember that you never have as much time as you think you do. Don’t put off the awesome for the everyday. It’s just not worth it.
I had a friend recently give me a disc full of production stills from a short film we made last April. This shot about sums up Matty and I.
He’s been on my mind a lot today. For the first time since he passed away, it hasn’t been sad to remember him. Like a treasured childhood memory or looking back on a past adventure - you know that it’s over, but you’re thankful to have had it.
Back to Work
Fact: I haven’t heard Matty’s voice or Merlin Mann’s voice since May 23rd.
When I left on the roadtrip, Matt and I had been spending entirely too much time together. We were starting to get irate and take each other for granted. It happens. It doesn’t mean you don’t love someone, it just means you need your space. I spent the first day of the roadtrip catching up on Back To Work podcasts and falling in love with my job again.
And then everything fell apart when I got that phone call. It happens.
It’s been a tough 4 month slog. I feel like if the first three months were all productivity, last month finally saw the crash. It was all I could do to get out of bed and shower. I stopped working, stopped exercising, stopped living. But self-pity is in limited supply around here. I’m boxing again, going out and forcing myself to live. Because one of us has to. Yesterday I started working on new designs for the fall.
Today I did the thing I was dreading - I listened to a recording of Matt’s voice. It didn’t hurt, it didn’t upset me, it just made me smile. I think I’m ready to tackle those missed Back To Work podcasts and start building my business again.
… It’s happening.
It’s been over twelve weeks…
since I lost my spouse, my best friend and my business partner. I lost the future that we had planned and worked so hard to achieve. We went full time with the business 2.5 years ago and never stopped to take a minute to appreciate each other.
I wish we had made more time to just be in love.
But the business is carrying on. Since Matty passed away I’ve shipped out 237 orders, renovated a room, re-organized two other rooms, imported over $35K in latex sheeting, learned how to navigate the sea of paperwork that is importing/exporting, learned how to finance and run a business, learned Illustrator, learned how to operate a laser cutter, learned how to run, learned how to make all those products that only Matty knew how to make, lost 10lbs, learned how to scuba dive, shrank from a size 10 to a size 6 by rigorous exercise
…and realized that I’m a lot more awesome than I give myself credit for.
Even though every day I have to deal with the crushing sadness of knowing I’ll never see Matt again, I like to think that wherever he is, he’s really proud of me.
Even if he’s not, I’m certainly proud of myself.