When Matthew Died—Again

Sometimes “doing it scared” isn’t about leaping into something new—it’s about standing in the same place you once broke, feeling it all over again, and still stepping forward anyway.

Standing backstage during the final scenes of our first show yesterday, it took everything in me not to break down into silent sobs.

Let’s be clear—the main reason was that I didn’t want to redo my makeup. Stage makeup is so extra, and my youngest had left the kit at home.

Regardless, the tears were there, pooling under the surface, drawing together all the pieces that have been weighing on me for the last two weeks.

I first performed Anne of Green Gables in the weeks around my father’s death in 8th grade. I can’t remember if it was before or after—logic says before, but the details are muddy.

And here I am, almost thirty years later, performing it again. Different script, different songs, same key story points.

Spoiler alert: Anne is brought from the orphanage by Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, who’d asked for a boy to help run their farm in Edwardian Prince Edward Island. Anne wins over Matthew immediately, and over time she grows on Marilla. Then tragedy strikes—Matthew dies, leaving Anne and Marilla to fend for themselves, just as Anne wins a prestigious four-year university scholarship.

The tears under the surface broke loose as Matthew died on stage, after singing to Anne that he hopes she never changes. But they spilled when Marilla sang her song after his funeral:

“I can’t find the words.

Can’t get out the phrases.

When he needed love, did I sing his praises?

Where did the words go when I was beside him?

Why couldn’t I show all the love that my heart felt toward him?

I adored him.

God reward him.

I can’t find the words.”

The actor got choked up on I adored him. And it hit me like a ton of bricks.

You see, I don’t carry abandonment from the “everyone leaves me” place—at thirteen, I already knew my dad had no choice. His tragic ending wasn’t his fault. He wouldn’t have chosen to leave his princess to fend for herself.

But rejection? That’s a different wound.

Michelle—my other biological parent.

The majority of people I have been romantically interested in.

My closest friends turning on me during my senior year.

Rejection of me, my big feelings, my authentic self.

No one has ever seemed okay with being around all of it—much less willing to sit with it.

And now, the universe decides that this exact moment—doing this play thirty years later, a play where the father figure dies and leaves the young girl with the stern, emotionally unavailable mother figure—is also the moment to bring me a love that rocks me and pushes me to grow. Someone who’s actually willing to sit with it—all of it.

But it’s a love I can’t have every day. Not yet anyway.

So what the fuck do I do? I feel pulled in a dozen directions, the noise in my head exhausting and overwhelming, narratives swirling about how I’m failing myself, my boys, sabotaging this new connection. When do I even get to breathe?

Even in the swirl of too-muchness, I know where to land.

Here’s the thing about healing:

I’ve done the work.

Years of therapy.

Years of coaching.

Shadow work.

Grief work.

Countless hours learning how to walk myself through my own storms.

And it helps.

It’s why I can stand in the wings, feel the lump in my throat, wipe the tears carefully from my made-up face (but not with my white gloves—those are hopeless against stage makeup), and still step on stage.

It’s why I can go back to this new love with words to describe what’s happening in my head and trust they won’t run away.

Because doing it scared doesn’t mean you never feel the fear or the ache—it means you’ve built the tools to keep going anyway.

And sometimes? Sometimes you still need someone else to sit beside you and help you see the map when you’re lost in the fog.

That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.

We think courage is about charging forward without hesitation. But sometimes the bravest thing is letting yourself feel it all—when the past crashes into the present, when old wounds rub against new hope, when you’re holding grief and gratitude in the same breath.

We never have all the answers, and we will continue to fuck things up. That’s just human nature. The beauty of our lives shines through vividly when we take action anyway, undeterred by the impossible idea of perfection.

We step out into the light anyway.

Even if your makeup’s a mess and the audience is waiting.

And just when I thought I’d wrung every last thread of meaning from this, I pulled Brennan into my arms this morning and told him about the connection.

How the show I did right around Poppa’s death was Anne of Green Gables. A different version, but the same storyline—where a father dies and leaves the teen girl with a parent who is emotionally unavailable.

His little face shifted as the weight of it landed. He drew his hand to his mouth, concern flooding his eyes.

“And we get to do this show together,” I told him. “Our first show brings my past into my present…and it will go with you into the future as well.”

That’s fucking magic right there. No mere coincidence. Universal convergence at its finest.

This realization deepens the pain of the memory, the joy of the present, and the hope for the future.

💭 Reflection Prompt:

What tools do you have to walk yourself through the hard moments?

And who’s the person you’d call when you can’t see the way forward on your own?

Be strong. Do it scared. 💜