Trouble with Journaling I have always had difficulty with keeping a journal for the purpose of dealing with TMS. After writing for what seemed like hours and hours I would end up with a contrived jumble of words. I would over think. The same stories about what I thought I should be feeling repeated themselves every time. Last week I began a course in Memoir Writing. For the first time I wrote about a memory a story from my past. I would like to share it with you.
The Touch
She was eighty I was fifty. She leaned close to speak and placed her hand on my leg. We were sitting in my car in the driveway at my house. We had been shopping. My father hated to shop so it became my job to take her to the store to find a new couch for their den. For years my father had taken her to shop. She did not drive. Afraid. He spends many hours sitting in parking lots waiting for her to finish so that he can take her home. Sometimes, when I was a teenager I would go along. I would shop with her. She would never worry about the time. He never complained. Occasionally she would buy something for me. Most of the time she bought things for herself. There was never anything in the bag for my father. He never complained. She wanted a new watch and he had a friend in the jewelry business. One evening he brought home twenty watches so that she would be able to pick one out that she liked. Not one. The next evening he brought home some more. Not twenty. The stock was exhausted. Still she could not find one she liked. He didn’t complain, but he never brought any more watches home. She never took me to a movie. We never had a lunch date or told each other secrets. She was eighty I was fifty. She leaned close to speak and placed her hand on my leg. I felt my eyes fill with tears and my heart sink. My mother never touched me. I didn’t realize that until that very moment. I never let her see my tears.
This was the first time I really felt. Now I can let that moment go. So maybe if we don’t call it journaling and call it memoir writing we can reach deeper. I see this as a new beginning for me. Marsha
I think touch is really important and that in our culture we are deprived of sufficient touch.
I hope you're remembering to ask your husband for plenty of hugs?
Good point about the over-thinking / analysing rather than feeling - I think many of us here are good at that! I like Abigail Steidley's blog about that:
Trouble With Journaling
Posted - 10/02/2009 : 15:21:43
