Soul Therapy

After my last entry, the consensus seemed to be that I did indeed need a name change, so I’ve changed my display name to what writing has been for me.

I have always been an above average writer.  From grade school, if there were essay or poetry contests, I would usually win.  In college, my writing was often used as an example of work well done.  Professors asked me for copies of my work for their own portfolios.  /bragging

Despite all of these things, I never really realized that I had a talent until my last years in college.  As I’ve previously written, most of my life, from the age of three until into my 30’s, I thought love had to be earned.  I earned it by striving to be the best at everything I did:  grades, writing, singing, behavior, you name it.  If I did it, I tried to be the best.

The problem with “earning” love, is that people who actually do love us, may not realize that this is what we are doing.  For example, when I came home with my first and only straight-A report card in 8th grade, my mother shrugged her shoulders and said, “hmm.”  She then handed it back to me as she continued to wash dishes.  When I didn’t get the “love,” which I now know was “attention,” that I felt I deserved, I felt like a failure.  When you excel at everything, people stop noticing, and I feel more and more like a failure… a loser… worthless, which led to seeking out the wrong kinds of attention.

Feeling like a total loser and then learning that the guy I’d had a crush on for a long time actually had feelings for me, was like winning the lottery.  I never questioned anything, I just felt grateful to be wanted by a man, and not any man, but a local rock star who was so hot!

I won’t retell that story here.  My attempted memoir began here.

If you’ve followed this journal, you read about my marriage and divorce.  It was one of the hardest times of my life.  Writing helped me to process my feelings.  It was then that I began writing about the various abuse I’d experienced throughout my life.  Writing has helped me to get from a place of bitterness and anger to a place of love and gratitude.  All of that is documented in this journal.  And that is why I call my writing “Soul Therapy.”

Here is a poem I wrote in 1996 when I first began to realize the power of my writing.