January 21, 2023

Dear Reader,

Two days before Christmas, the temperature plummeted and we had a wind storm here in OBX. This produced the biggest waves that Alicia and I have ever seen on the sound behind our house. Having lived through almost a decade's worth of storms and hurricanes, we didn't think much of fifty-mile-an-hour gusts. I recorded a video of the raging swells and sent it to a few friends with the caption, "Surf's up on the Albemarle Sound."

The next day, Alicia discovered that our bulkhead—the wall that keeps our land from eroding into the sound—was leaning three extra feet away from our home and a deep gap had been carved out by all the water that had rushed in. A shocking amount of sand was missing. It almost looked like an earthquake had devoured a sliver of our property. Expensive repairs were obviously needed. Not good. And yet when Alicia broke the news to me, I laughed and thought, "Of course."

I'm not sure I really understood why I found the bulkhead situation amusing at the time—Why did it initially feel like an emotional release?—but I have been meditating on the experience.

In the days that followed, I realized that I actually felt guilty about our bulkhead failing, as if I had somehow contributed to its demise. It was a ridiculous thought, as storm damage is just an inevitable part of being an OBXer. That dark cloud eventually hovers over everyone who dares to live on a sandbar long enough—especially on waterfront property. 

"Just the cost of all those beautiful sunsets," an OBX friend said to me.

But our neighbors to the right and left had escaped the storm with little to no damage.

Why?

Of course, it's impossible to know. Perhaps it was the direction of the wind or where the waves were hitting? Maybe something hard—like a tree branch—had struck only our bulkhead mid-storm? Who knows? But for whatever reason, this time around the precise conditions for a bulkhead to fail were delivered to our property and not the properties of our neighbors.

It was our turn.

How do we know when it's our turn to be psychologically tested by life's mental storms?

I don't believe there's a weather channel for that.

On the WATL book tour, I met hundreds of people eager to engage in generous and nuanced conversations. I continue to hear from readers all over the globe who have taken away something positive from my latest; these messages are deeply meaningful to me.

I felt a strong familiar hunger emanating from most of those I interacted with this past fall. It was beautiful and healing to team up with like-minded and heroically supportive booksellers, librarians, educators, fellow novelists, and readers. There are good people out there. There is light. Everywhere I went, I found brightness.

And yet, extroverting my personal material—speaking about my sobriety, my masculine wounds, my creative fears, my battle with writer's block, and feeling adrift in the current culture wars—cost me.

The old winds of anxiety and waves of depression continued to hammer away—and at times, it felt like my inner bulkhead might fail. While my analyst and I worked to fortify my psyche, I'd sometimes look at other novelists on-line who seemed to be having a much easier time of things. The psychological weather seemed to bounce off their soul bulkheads without creating much concern whatsoever. (Seemed is the operative word here.) At times, it was hard not to wonder if others weren't subject to the types of storms that rage on inside of me, or were they simply better fortified? Could they teach me how to keep such storms at bay? Or how to better strengthen myself against psychological inclement weather? Was there a secret? A cheat code?

It's tempting to think that I might be able to have gorgeous nightly sunsets without doing the waterfront-property maintenance.

But there is always a cost.

The first book-tour stop I made last fall was Denver. A booksellers' convention. I had several panic attacks in the airport and then at the hotel, but I was able to pull myself together enough to host a dinner party and give a speech at a breakfast. (Coincidentally, I stepped up to the podium right after my old creative writing teacher, the novelist Justin Cronin, finished speaking—and almost thirty years after taking his class. That was quite a full-circle moment.) These events went extraordinarily well. As I recounted the victories to my analyst via Zoom from my hotel room, I asked why I had so much pre-public-appearance anxiety and how could I get rid of it.

He sat with the question for a long moment before he suggested that maybe the anxiety was a necessary part of my preparation—that it might get me into a heightened state, from which I am able to more immediately connect with audiences. Maybe I wouldn't be the speaker and writer I am without the anxiety and depression. Maybe learning how to tolerate psychological weather was the requirement. Needless to say, this was not what I wanted to hear.

There is a cost for living on the edge, be it the edge of physical land or the edge of our mental and/or spiritual limitations.

These edges offer gorgeous views, yes, but we must always pay for them in one way or another.

When I was a young hopeful novelist, I often fantasized about the day when I would "make it." I thought one day there would be no more anxiety or depression or existential dread. No more money worries. No more pain from past psychological traumas. No more loneliness. No more rejection. No more uncertainty.

But as I begin to wizen here in midlife, I realize that the storm raging within me has always been the very thing that makes me a writer. Without all of those emotional waves, without all of those inner gusts of wind, we wouldn't be here together right now, connecting in this good way.

Sometimes the constant upkeep of the inner bulkhead feels like too much. It can be tempting to let the storm break through and carry me off for good. To free myself of the tension forever. But weathering the pressure is what has gifted me the life I have. It also creates the novels and the personal letters that I send out to all of you. Paying that cost is where meaning is made.

So Alicia and I will hire skilled locals to fix and strengthen our bulkhead and backfill the land. And my analyst and I will continue to patch up all my inner cracks as best we can and replace any compromised old psychological supports inside of Matthew Quick.

As you walk boldly into 2023, I wish you all the necessary strength to do your own spiritual and psychological maintenance, bear the inherent tension of your life, and make your personal struggle meaningful.

I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep showing up here on the 21st of every month and I hope you will do the same.

Bonus: A few new interviews, including one with the novelist Meg Wolitzer, via Books & Books. Meg and I once headlined a literary festival together in Manila. True story.

Okay, friends.

Until the 21st of February 2023, please remember that wherever you are in the world, whatever your current battle may be, your man in Coastal NC is sending you good vibes. Always.

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MATTHEW

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