Matt Haig, THE COMFORT BOOK

[1:06]Zibby Owens: This is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen vaccine research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write a New Publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay. Now back to this amazing podcast. I had the most amazing conversation with Matt Haig, who is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Midnight Library, and the internationally bestselling memoir, Reasons to Stay Alive. And the follow-up, Notes on a Nervous Planet, along with six novels, including How to Stop Time and several award winning children's books. His latest book is called The Comfort Book and was just amazing. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages, and I hope you enjoy this conversation and that it really helps the ones who need it. Welcome, Meg. I'm so excited to have you on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss your latest, Comfort Book, which is so amazing. So welcome. It is so nice to be here, Zibby, and I'm really looking forward to our chat. Aw. Were so open and just you put your heart on the page in this collection of thoughts and the occasional recipe and musings and quotes, and I was blown away. I was just totally blown away by your transparency and insight and soulfulness and all of it and your willingness to share it with readers. Tell me about how this became a book.

[2:53]Matt Haig: It was a very accidental book. It wasn't a part of any grand plan. I had finished writing the Midnight Library at the start of last year, 2020, that fateful year. And I was editing it around February, March, and I have a lot of sort of nervous energy when I I I finish writing book, especially that book because I was so so worried. And because of what was going on on the news and the world in terms of pandemic stuff and everything, I almost wanted to sort of head in the other direction. I wanted to kind of, like, provide a counterbalance, you know, to myself selfishly, firstly, you know, to actually write something that's calming and comforting. And, you know, over the years, I have often, whether, you know, to put up on the Internet or just to put in a Word document and leave. I've often tried to sort of, like, condense things that I've learned about my own mental health and experience a mental illness, which I experienced quite severely in my twenties, and I still have various little issues and bouts occasionally with anxiety and depression and panic. So things I've learned in recovery, things I've learned in life, things I've learned from other people, an excuse to go off and research inspiring life stories, comforting recipes, my favorite movies, just literally the ultimate counterbalance to the sort of troublesome nature of the times we're in, a book about acceptance and resilience. And format wise, to do it in the most simple, easy, accessible, almost nonbookish kind of book. You know? It it it's a we say in England, you know, we we call them well, it's somewhere between a coffee table book and a toilet book. And I you know? So if I'm feeling classy, I will go for the coffee table.

[4:51]Zibby Owens: Could also be it could also be one of those books when you check out, when you, you know, you have your arms packed with books like The Midnight Library for instance, and then you're checking out and you're like, oh, the comfort book. Well, I've gotta just throw that on the stack. Right? How could I not wanna be comforted? Right? That's like an elemental human being. I like you know, and even down to the title, you know, the comfort book. Like, literally, to try and do a book that is so

[5:14]Matt Haig: obvious, it does what it says on the tin. I can remember in my most frazzled moments and I was having a bit of a frazzled moment as many of us were at the start of last year. But, you know, generally, in my worst sort of most stressed out periods of time, the kind of books I'm able to cope with are often books that don't demand that much of me, and they don't necessarily demand I sit there with a 800 page tome of Russian literature and start at the beginning and end at the end, and there's chapters that are about 50 pages long. And sometimes it's just a little bit too much. So this book was you know, I wanted this to be a book that no one would leave a have to leave a chapter halfway through because the chapters I mean, I think I think there's something like that are, like, four words or five words. And I intersperse them. I think I think I what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to have my cake and eat it. So the ease of it, I feel, is a bit of a Trojan horse. I'm actually trying to put some, I think, important bits of philosophy, not not just my own philosophy, but other people's philosophy in there, but to do it in a way that doesn't feel like work for anyone, to actually, you know, help people reframe things, but without them actually feeling like it's a self help book in the sense that, okay. I've gotta reframe I've gotta reorganize my life, and I've I've gotta change when I go to bed, and I've gotta do this, and I've gotta change my diet, and I've gotta get rid of gluten, and I've gotta do the I I want it you know, but all of that, I I wanted it to be the easiest, the world's easiest self help book. There's not really a self help book. It's a self acceptance book. It's just the kind of, like, taking a breath where we are now, kind So maybe you can give this book with a big heaping of your favorite gluten treat. Right? So now I'm thinking corn muffins and the comfort book is like I I do I do reference pasta quite a bit. Yes. That's true. With a content warning for Kodiak's. But, yeah, I don't know. It it was just it's just it's a very personal book in some ways, even though even though a lot of the stuff is quite general. I put a lot of myself in there. I think I was also feeling frustrated after writing a novel like The Midnight Library, which I'm obviously proud of writing, but it was very structurally, it was very tricksy. And even though, hopefully, The Midnight Library is quite an easy read for people, it wasn't an easy write in the sense that I had so many different locations and overlapping multiverses, and it was like writing sort of 12 mini novels in one, having to research. And, also, it was a philosophical novel, but because it was a novel, you couldn't put you couldn't just sort of step aside all the time and philosophize. And I like, I like philosophy. I feel people are intimidated by philosophy, so I try and do the most sort of user friendly, accessible bits of philosophy without without hopefully dumbing anything down, but just you know, I think I think there's a challenge as a writer to actually keep things simple. It's so easy, especially in my country, in England, in especially in the London literary scene. There's a tendency to equate difficulty with depth and profundity. And so you get a lot of actually quite shallow books but are incredibly difficult to read, which could have been a lot simpler. But people are super impressed by them because they give you a headache. And I want

[8:49]Zibby Owens: this to feel a bit worse. I am not impressed by books that give me a headache. The I thank you for just, you know, tell you know, telling it like it is there. You know? That does not help anybody. I mean, the thing that you did too that's so kind of brilliant with these little missives is instead of it's like the ultimate show, don't tell. Right? Because in a lot of self help books, and I I do read it quite a few, I think, you know, they'll say, you should repeat a mantra to yourself. You should tell yourself this. But instead, you have a whole thing like, I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. And like, when you read it as the reader, you are already doing what you're supposed to be doing. Right? You're saying these things to yourself or you're taking the breaths, you're all that stuff in in the way you're ingesting the words. So I don't it's very clever in a way. Yeah. I I suppose that's it. I'm I'm definitely not, like, preaching from a mountain top. I'm sort of like, the book is is the therapy by me doing it. Therefore, if you're reading it, you're doing the therapy alongside me rather than me being the therapist. Yeah.

[9:48]Matt Haig: Yeah. I like that. No one's put it like that. I I like that. Yeah. It wasn't really planned, but, yes, I I I'm glad I'm glad that was fun. But, yeah, I feel like with all books, though, you have to kind of forget that other books exist or at least other books in the genre you're writing. Because we're in a world full of books now, you know, with so many books. And but, like, you know, if any of us are sort of arrogant enough to feel like there needs to be another book out in the world, then the least you can do is to try and put something new in it and put something hopeful or practical or, you know, something that makes something feel something. So, you know, literally, with this, I wanted people to feel comfort, but it's not the comfort of it's not the comfort of denial because we're in a a world right now where it'd be very easy to just, you know, spend the rest of our lives as ostriches and ignore terrible things happening in the world. It's not it's not that. It's the comfort of actually however bad things are. There's a vastness inside us and a resilience inside us that can actually cope with more than we actually sometimes can feel like we can cope within that given any given moment. And that goes back to my my own sort of life experience of suicidal depression and panic disorder and being for years as a younger person in a state of literally feeling trapped. Like, I I could not get out of my own mind and that feeling impossible. So I I feel like I've got when when I'm writing in a vaguely mental health area, I think my incentive is always trying to remember what I was like at my worst point and to see if there's any words that would actually hack into that person. That said, I feel like compared to other nonfiction books I've written, this isn't really a medical book. It's not a you know, I'm not a therapist. I'm not a doctor. I shied away from even with my own mental health, going into too much of a nitty gritty about labels and diagnoses and stuff. I wanted this to be sort of general. You know? Because it's a I suppose it is a mental health book rather than a mental illness book, if that makes sense. It's kind of like a you know, we all have mental health, and it's something we all need to think about just as we all have to think about physical health.

[12:09]Zibby Owens: So yeah. Amazing. There's one part I just wanted to read about words. It's words too. And it's a continuation, but I like this part the best. You said, so yes. Words are important. Words can hurt. Words can heal. Words can comfort. There was a time when I couldn't speak. There was a time when my depression was so heavy, my tongue wouldn't move. A time when the distance between the open gate of my mouth and the storm of my mind seemed too far. I could manage monosyllables sometimes. I could nod, I could mumble, but I sounded as if I were in slow motion, underwater. I was lost. To want to speak was to want to live. And in those depths, I wanted neither. I just wanted to want, if that makes sense. Ugh. You just so put us there with you. It's like you couldn't even talk and now and yet you've, like, produced this whole book now. So, like, we know you're gonna get to the other side of it. And then you just wanna see, like, how is he doing this? Like, how did he get there? Like and then you're like, oh, okay. By saying all this stuff, great. Now I know what to do, in a way. But I'm so sorry you went through that. I mean, and that you kind of have to contend with this. And then, you know, towards the end, you feel your fear. Like, I hope it's not going to come back. You know, it's sort of how I had like this dose of insomnia at one point in my life. And I'm always a little bit afraid, like, I hope it doesn't come back. I don't want think about too much or it's gonna come back. Anyway, so I felt like I related to, you know, that, you know, like, you're hopeful, but it's out of your control, but it's your head. And you're like, I don't know. And then I got so devastated when I was on your social media after reading this. And you said that you had had like another kind of relapse of sorts or something in the last year or two. So I just wanted to ask what happened or what that was about. And now I feel like so invested in in your, like, I don't know. I was like, oh, no. It happened. And he was so worried about it, and the worry didn't stop it.

[14:00]Matt Haig: No. It's true. I mean, I anxiety is a bigger thing for me than depression. I mean, depression is quite rare. I had depression for a few years when I was younger. And since then, that's been the occasional bout of about three weeks of depression. The difference is though, nowadays, is that when I first became ill, I had no idea. I had no idea. I didn't even know what I was experiencing until I got the labels given to me. I felt like I was in this totally new land, and I would never get out of it. And I wouldn't get out of it because I didn't know how I'd got into it. It sounds absolutely appalling, but I used to I used to wish something bad had happened so I could have a reason why I felt like that. I wanted a cause and effect, and it wasn't that simple. I you know, there were there were obviously causes. There are always causes, but those causes were you know, there was no backstory. There was no exciting backstory of, you know, some tragic incident. So I didn't have a way an easy sort of therapy to sort of address a thing because that thing was me, and it was so many things. It was my whole life of the various things and low self esteem and a million other things, just my brain chemistry and all of that. So a lot it was it sat felt impossible to undo. But the difference is nowadays, if I become ill, I'll know that I'm not there forever. So it's horrible. Like, anything is horrible. But can you imagine if you experience something like flu that instead of thinking, oh, it's flu, you thought, I'm gonna have this flu for fifty years, and this flu is gonna be forever. Then it becomes a psychologically different thing. And I feel like a lot of what we've been going through this last year of pandemic, what's made it so scary is the uncertainty around it. You know, when you can't when you don't know what you're dealing with, it's a lot harder. And that was definitely me in the early days with mental illness. I didn't understand it. Where so now I can have the physical and mental feelings that are as bad, but there's another level where I'm kind of watching myself in a way I wasn't. And even the way I speak about myself has changed. Like, a few even a few years ago, I talk about myself as a depressive. Whereas now, if I'm ever feeling depressed, I will say I am feeling depressed or I'm experiencing depression or I have a bout of depression, but there will be a separation between me and the thing. Whereas if you say, and there's nothing wrong you know, people can talk about their own conditions how they want to. I'm not I'm not here to preach that. But I'm saying in my own terms, if I call myself a depressive, I will start to feel that I'm defining myself by this thing, and therefore, this thing is kinda bigger than me because I'm a part of this thing rather than this thing being a part of me. So it sounds like a little sort of semantic point, but it was a very big thing for me to actually see it almost as weather. You know? To see it actually it's not to belittle the weather. Weather can be very scary. And, you know, you can be caught in a hurricane, and and it can be fatal, and it can be dangerous, and it can knock you off your feet and all of that. So it's not to belittle anything, but it is to say that there's a separation between you and the hurricane. If you're caught in a hurricane, you're not the hurricane. You're the person experiencing it. And we we don't stay in one state of mind, forever, just as, you know, no country, even a rainy country like England has a glorious sunny day sometimes, and I've been swimming in the sea, which you can't do every day. So you learn to appreciate the moments metaphorically when you can swim in the sea and you can go out in the sunshine. And I have honestly I I definitely don't ever want people to feel sorry for me because but people think I'm a bit strange when I say this. I'm I've honestly known more happiness and moments of joy and gratitude this side of my breakdown than I ever did prior to my breakdown. So part of my therapy and recovery has been to actually rather been be than be so intimidated by it, because I used to be so intimidated by panic disorder because it's just scary because that's what the definition of the symptoms is. It's just to be scared all the time and depression to try and actually be grateful for this impossible thing, this horrible thing, to actually be grateful, not for the experience that I wouldn't wanna go through again, but for the stuff that has come in its wake, for the sense of gratitude for not feeling that. If nothing else, you know, has given me an appreciation of normal, ordinary, boring things that before I used to think were, you know, the worst things ever. And now you're just grateful for life lived at a low volume and just being with people you love and going for a walk and all of that stuff. So it has helped me in terms of perspective, because I think I used to be quite selfish. You know, not horrible, but, you know, just a bit too self absorbed as a young man. And, yeah, it's given me a better sense perspective, I suppose. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[22:38]Matt Haig: I feel like, yeah, to have that sort of binary system that's so rigid of, like, good people, bad people. The problem with it selfishly is that one day, you're gonna do something which is possibly on the bad side of the line of where where your judgment is. You're there'll be a slip or something in your own life. And it's not up to other people to forgive you, but if you if, you know, if you wanna stay living in your own skin, you've gotta learn a little bit of self forgiveness in less than perfect moments. So yeah. I mean, yeah, but that is a bit silly, isn't it, Texting on a skateboard. I mean, you know, it's not it's not the best. It's not the best. It deserved a call out. You know? There's there's Yeah. There's a whole golden future ahead.

[23:18]Zibby Owens: But I also relate to, you know, you're saying you wish something had been wrong when you were so upset because, you know, sometimes, like, even I I get, like, so upset. And I'm like, how can I be crying? I'm so lucky. You know, how can like, I'm such a lucky person. There's nothing that could justify why I'm crying right now. And I can, like, feel it, like, on every sense. And and then I just feel like beating myself up about it just makes it so much worse. Right? So,

[23:45]Matt Haig: anyway, being able to identify. I I I relate to that. I relate to that. I feel like because I always say about from a mental health standpoint, one of the one of the reasons it's so hard to break the cycle sometimes is you get depressed about the depression. You get anxious about the anxiety. You panic about the panic attacks. So you just it it's self feeding. And so so so the only way out of that loop involves some deep, deep acceptance sometimes. Like, I mean, you know, depression still is a a mysterious thing, and I definitely do not have the the secret to how to beat depression. In terms of panic attacks, that that's one thing I'm really proud of because I used to I mean, panic attacks used to dog my life. I used to have multiple panic attacks a day. And between panic attacks, it wasn't like I was in a nice zone. I was just in continual dread of the next panic attack, and that dread was making the next panic attack. It was working on next panic attack happening. So you'd swing between this sort of depression and dread and then total heart pounding fear. And that was you know, it's it I'm not gonna I'm not gonna compare it to anyone else's experience, but it in my own life, that was the worst thing I've ever known. And to but but now I don't have have panic attacks. I haven't had panic attacks for years. I have had feelings at the start of a panic attack which rise up for no reason. And that was always a scary thing for me. Because if you're panicking because there's a bear that's just broken into your house, then that's terrifying because of the bear. But when you're panicking because of the panic, it's terrifying because of you. So that's a that's a whole you are the bear. So it's a whole different level. I'm sorry to even, like, have you be thinking about this. I feel like I'm totally stressing you out by making you, like, talk about this again. I'm sorry. It's good. I'll I've I've just been doing a lot of PR in England for the comfort book, which has yeah. It's been hour after hour of turning into a a therapy session. So I'm I'm probably just extending my therapy session here. I'm sorry. No. No. It's yeah. But with panic attacks, it's like I almost had to get to a point where I I wanted them. I wanted this terrible thing. And the the the way I justified it was that if you go to the gym and you're doing tough exercise, there's people who want it to feel hard. So I I was, like, wanting this thing that was mentally hard and to see how I would respond to this mentally hard thing. And, of course, once you start playing that little mind game, the panic starts to lose a bit of interest because the panic doesn't want to be wanted. Fear fear doesn't want to be wanted. Fear wants to be feared. So you you have to almost sort of, like, give as many hack into your body as many signals as possible that tells your body that actually you're not bothered about it. I think that's why people bang on about breathing all the time because breathing is just a great way to to to change the barometer of your body to actually you know, I don't think breathing is the source of cure for everything. But, actually, when it comes to fear and anxiety, it's it's kind of a good way to actually slow things down. So sometimes I'll just slow my breathing down, lie on the floor, and just allow it allow it to happen. Do this thing called square breathing. Have you heard of square breathing? I'm turning this into a very, into a wellness channel, I'm sorry. Perfect. Great. I mean, I could I'll I'll take all the help I can get. Bring it on. Yeah. Where you breathe slowly for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. And as you're doing it, you kinda picture it. You can close your eyes, and you you picture the square forming, and you do it four times over. And it's a technique we use in the military. Military. And you you feel like, well, if it's a technique used by the military, whatever you think of the military, they're not, you know, they're not hippie dippie. They're not, you know, they're not all dressed in hemp and, you know, going on. So I I always feel like, okay. There might be some science behind that. So I do square breathing quite quite a a bit. Bit. And then I'm gonna Yeah. I'm gonna try that. Rumble. Rumble. That's okay. I'm gonna try square breathing. I think that's awesome.

[27:52]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Fantastic. So quickly then and there were so many other things. I wanted to ask about your grandmother in Vienna and, like, you know, World War two. I mean, there's so much other stuff in this book, by the way, which was amazing. But I wanted to know if you're working on anything else, and I wanted to see if you had advice for aspiring authors, which I'm sure you get asked a lot, but I I have to ask because it's okay. Yeah. But working on anything else question, that is just honestly,

[28:16]Matt Haig: I would rather talk about my worst mental health experiences.

[28:22]Zibby Owens: Okay. Let's skip let's skip it. No.

[28:24]Matt Haig: No. No. It's fine. It's good. I don't really I don't care that much. Let's skip it. Yeah. I'll I'll just, like, actually It's interesting in the sense that people imagine if you had quite a successful book. Like, first time I've had a really successful book in America is The Midnight Library. You know? Some Americans even think it's my first book, and it's, like, my twenty first book. But if we we imagine that, okay, after that, you'd be on this sort of, like, hot creative high and just wanting to be and, actually, I've really found it hard to actually get thinking of another novel. I have got ideas, but my ability to judge which ideas are the ones versus which ideas are the ones I should be ignoring is quite hard to do when you're in the middle of sort of publicity blitzes and things like that. So I'm sure I'll get some space. I have an idea about doing a, kind of sequel to Hansel and Gretel, but so in the nineteen eighties, largely. A bit of present day, a bit of the thirteen hundreds as well, predominantly focused on Gretel, but also Hansel. And, you know, because I feel like you know, if you think of a fairy tale about overcoming trauma, you know, Hansel and Gretel have the ultimate worst childhood experiences. And I I thought there's something sort of fun and interesting to do with them, but I don't know because it hasn't quite

[29:47]Zibby Owens: it's not quite there yet. So it'll probably turn into something else. We will see. Anyway but but you know That does sound good, though, you know, if you want, like, a little focus group. Okay. Yeah. I would be interested in that. So, anyway, keep going. And

[30:01]Matt Haig: the other question you asked about advice. Yeah. I mean, I I used to teach creative writing for a little bit, and I was the world's worst creative writing tutor. I'm really bad. I don't know why. You know? Teaching is its own separate skill, isn't it? But I'm bad at explaining my writing process for a start and sort of saying how I how I do things or how people should do things. But I think, really, the advice well, firstly, read bird by bird by Anne Lemarle. That's a great book about writing. I love that book. You know, obviously, there's other classics like Stephen King's on writing and stuff. But Anne Lemont is great at writing about writing, and she's a great American writer. We don't really know much of in our country, but I I'm really always banging the drum for Anne Lemont. Anyway, what's what else? Just be honest and true. I feel like in in all things, be honest and true. And not don't be scared when you're starting out of what you're writing. Don't have that stage fright when you when you when you start writing a book. I think there's something about books, and it is a little bit equivalent to theater, where people are a little bit intimidated. There's a whole there's so many class connotations, and there's a sort of intimidating vibe that some people have towards books, at least when they put the author hat on, and they feel they have to write in a slightly forced or pretentious way, which isn't necessarily natural to them. I think the most important thing is to find out a voice that is true to yourself, and that's no no easy thing. It took me many books. You know, I was published as an author, and still, I would say, in my early books, I didn't really have my voice. It took me till about I I was published in 2004, and I think it took me the best part of a decade. I published a book in 2013 called The Humans, which I think was the first book. It's definitely not a perfect book. It's got lots of uneven things in it. But it was the first book that I actually realized who I was as a writer, and it took me all that time. Because, you know, I I wrote a book which was published, and it was even published in your country, called The Possession of Mister Cave when I was younger. And I would strongly advise people who who like my more recent stuff to not. Because oh, it's I it's like, you know, like, when you have old being a writer is like, when you've done it for a few years, it's like having lots of embarrassing old photos of haircuts. There's occasionally times where you think, oh, I really look good in that. That hair was good. What was I worried about? But there's a lot of times you think, really? I was wearing cut off dungarees and I had hair on my face, and that was one of those cut off dungarees books. And basically, every almost everyone dies in that book. I thought the job of a writer was to be as miserable and bleak as possible. And if I wanted to be taken seriously by the literary establishment, whatever that is, I had to do this sort of thing and, you know, and I was very insecure because I'd already been published by this very highbrow imprint in The UK who published all these Booker Prize books. And I was doing this kind of karaoke version of what I thought was serious literature, and it was just so I see it. And it did have quite some quite good reviews and stuff, but I see it now, and I I feel a bit like yeah. That was when I was most lost as a writer. And, yeah, then I reached a point where I sort of, yeah, didn't really care. And I actually just wrote for myself, but in a way of writing for myself where it's hopefully for other people as well. Because the only reader you're ever gonna know is you. So you have to be truly honest about what you want to read rather than what you would want to be seen reading or what you would want on your shelf. What do you actually want to read? And I think truth and honesty, even if you're writing about unicorns and vampires, truth and honesty in your intentions and in the emotions is always

[34:03]Zibby Owens: the starting point. Well, I don't know why you think you're a bad teacher. I mean, I thought first of all, that was great advice and very inspiring. And second of all, you also

[34:11]Matt Haig: have taught me you just, like, gave me a little wellness class here this morning. So, you know, you can take that show on the road if the writing thing doesn't work out or whatever. People the the weird thing about riches people is, you know, I could possibly think I'm the best teacher in the world, but I'd still have to say think I'm a terrible teacher because we're a very confusing we have to always self deprecate. It's what we do. We apologize just for I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I you know, we don't say pardon or excuse me. We just say sorry, you know, if we're in a shop and we're, you know, getting in someone's way. So yeah. But to be honest, I don't I don't think I'm actually that great at knowing how I write, you know, the actual nuts and bolts of it. But I'm quite good at giving the sort of vague inspirational stuff. But I the actual you know, if I was sitting with you going through your work and saying this you know, I I'd I'd be useless at that.

[35:01]Zibby Owens: I mean, writing is sort of like magic. Like, the way we think, it's it's there's no you can't really describe what you do. It's like how it I don't know. But I I still like to ask.

[35:12]Matt Haig: Yeah. No. That's exactly good. Because I'm always interested whenever writers talk about it because you will always get a different answer. Yes. And it will never be a wrong answer. And it's just it's the most subjective you know, it's not mathematics, is it? It's the most subjective

[35:26]Zibby Owens: everything's right and everything's wrong all at once. And, yeah, I think that was one of the great things about it. Wow. Well, Matt, thank you so much. This was so fun. Thank you for all of your wisdom, and thanks for the comfort book. And I love just thinking about how many people are gonna be out there, like Yeah. Ingesting those words and sort of saying them to themselves and then feeling better. I think that's amazing. So anyway. And the American jacket's growing on me now, actually. Oh, I love it. You don't like it? I like the light blue sky. Yeah. I really like it. It's my favorite company now. But at the start, I was thinking, oh, no. Is that too self help? But it's such a nice, like, blue. No. I love I love it. It's it's, like, it's great. It's my it's, my favorite color, so I'm biased. Perfect. Anyway. Alright. Alright. Well, have a great day, Matt. Yeah. Was so nice connecting. Good luck with skateboarders and texters and all of that. Thank you very much. Okay. Bye bye. For listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.