A Journey Home
Last year, in anticipation of selling my office and moving its contents home, my husband and I weeded out the basement.
After 24 years of marriage, eight in this home, this was no small feat. It wasn't just the junk we didn't need, nor items we no longer used. In addition to big, bulky stuff, we touched every book, CD, and photograph. I mean literally - every single photograph - going back to my childhood. Each picture went into a pile - keep it, toss it, or give it to the person in the shot. I do still have some piles of photos to mail out, but mostly, we were left with an abundance of space for my office belongings.
Simultaneously, we embarked on a small home renovation. While the work remained simple, it involved - ripping out the ugly carpet, installing gleaming hickory floors, switching out all the trim on doors, windows and baseboards, and a fresh paint palette. The undertaking required us to temporarily empty everything from the back half of our house, where the work was to take place. In the process, this too, became a purging project.
Amidst the chaos, I discovered a journal.
This book held the thoughts, secrets, dreams, and heartache of my 14 / 15-year-old self. Maintaining the prose had been a requirement of my sophomore English class with Al Wilson. There's a certain irony to this, as this same journal got my English teacher fired the following year, when it proved an attestation of his betrayal of my physical and emotional boundaries.
Following my rediscovery of this book, I took a couple of months to read the contents from cover to cover. Despite all of the teenaged drama, angst and hyperbole, I found myself falling in love with the author. Sometimes, the text read this kind of absurd sweetness: "I had the greatest day today. It's been so long since I've been able to say anything like that - and I'm really pleased to be able to write about it now. Today was the day I wore my hat and the entire day was incredible." I mean, how adorable is that? My heart swells, like the Grinch, reading that sort of naked vulnerability. On other occasions, the writer possessed a kind of wisdom that shocked me. Some of what 15-year-old me wrote to this 52-year-old teacher, would not be foreign spilling from my mouth today.
I'll give you an example. The nature of the journal assignment was to write about whatever I wanted. If there was a portion I didn't want read by Mr. Wilson, I could cover it with paper and tape. I did exactly this on a number of occasions throughout the school year. Every so often, maybe once every 4-6 weeks, Wilson would collect all the books, read through them, and leave comments in the margins.
At the close of 1982, I no longer felt comfortable about the imbalance of sharing.
I'd laid bare my young heart - about my grandfather's death a couple of years prior; about a 20-year-old "boy" from Ireland I'd fallen for that past summer; about my grandmother selling my childhood home and having to move into my aunt's basement; about my aunt having my mom arrested for disturbing the peace - and how much I hated my aunt. You get the idea. Lots of insanity surrounded that young version of me, and I wrote about all of it! Hence the discomfort of one-way intimacy and power.
So, I bravely asked for what I wanted. I requested he write in my journal, as though it were his own, so that he would evidence his trust in me, as I had trusted him. I promised to write back and keep his post confidential (which I did, until months into counseling in 1984). I further required, if he elected not to write, I wanted an explanation. Wilson said, "yes," and since his father had died between the time of my request and the next journal collection, he wrote about his tumultuous relationship with his dad:
Al Wilson: "One entry I made in my journal reflected on a time this last Christmas. I was mildly upset over the way my Dad was being opinionated and narrow. Now, if he were any other old, dying man, I would have had a sense of humor about it - laughed his behavior away. But, because he's my father, I have to be serious, play the old tapes and be a jerk."
To which I responded in the margin: "Playing the 'old tapes' was not being a jerk. You were simply dealing with him the only way you've ever been able to - and he contributed to that."
Al Wilson: "So, I created the relationship and I could've created a loving one. I did much of the time, but there were enough times that I didn't and I regret that."
To which 15-year-old me said: "You could not have created the relationship. That evolved from choices that both of you had made."
Maybe, these seem like obvious responses? I'd ask you to remember, you're reading it as an adult. I had just turned 15, and seriously, if you've ever worked with me, you know that my answers now would not be so very different. The language might be more sophisticated, but the message essentially the same.
Pouring through this journal revealed many things to me. To name a few:
I love and appreciate that young me.
My heart aches for the challenges she faced, and I credit her with amazing resilience.
I denied myself the privilege of asking for what I wanted - for years! I suspect, because when I did at 15, things went seriously sideways.
The seeds, of who I was to become, were abundantly evident in the beliefs and feelings of my younger self. The gifts I manifest now, as an adult, were vividly present during that season of chaos. Because (and this is true for all of us) when under duress, I always reach for the innate gifts within. Except, in the pain and fear, I might twist those gifts into a service of control, rather than open-hearted vulnerability.
There is no part of me that wishes to undo what I experienced at that time. Nor do I wish to evict that vulnerable teenager from my lexicon. Instead, I embrace her experience and all of who she was - even though it hurt. Reading her prose, I kept finding myself wanting to offer her a hug (she probably would have hated that), or to simply be someone who could sit next to her and listen to her plight, confusion, and wisdom (which she desperately craved). And you know what? By reading what she had to say all these years later, I did exactly that. She didn't have an adult me to hear and support her, but she lives inside me, still. She always will. And, for all the work I've done in the past to retrieve that part of my soul, I believe she is more at home in me, now, than ever.
Strange, isn't it? Someone, I trusted so completely, betrayed me. And yet, he gifted me with this tool of writing from the heart - an activity I've engaged in, on and off, for 40 years. One that regularly provides a path home to myself.
Several years ago, a healer I worked with planted a seed.
She said, "I see you leading a writing class." I guffawed! "Yeah, I don't write well enough to teach someone else how to do it." "Oh, no. It's not like that. You'll teach it your way."
Then, sometime this past year, a class title dropped in: "Write with Me." Hmm. No content, just a title. So, I wrote it on a piece of paper, along with the "What to Say?" title, and just let the note sit on my desk, collecting dust.
In November, I went on retreat for several weeks. I cleared out the cobwebs, nourished my soul - in a way that had been missing since the start of the pandemic. I came back to a new and improved baseline within.
As I wrote last month, I spent much of January in Mexico. While on the flight to Cancun, the shape of both programs (and others to come), began to take form. Since then, the blank spaces have been filling themselves in like Mad Libs - pointing the way to my next step.
When I thought I had enough structure and detail, I crafted an email to my web guy. As I put the finishing touches on the missive, I realized, "Oh, wait! It's not 'Write with Me.' The real title of the series is 'Right with Me.' That reflects the true content." While not always conscious of the purpose, I've been utilizing writing as a way to get right with me since before my 15th birthday. With maturity, the process evolved, with my heart truth remaining the one steady component. I know, first hand, the healing power of this medium, both at the time of writing and in the reflection - whether a month or 40 years later.
Maybe you've been seeking a new avenue for healing - a way to unearth and appreciate who you were before you became who you are now.
If "Right with Me" sounds the gong within (and sometimes that sounds like "Oh, shoot! That idea scares the pants off me!"), I invite you to join this intimate group of fellow travelers for a journey home to yourself.
Fun Fact - Perhaps unsurprisingly, the words journal and journey are born of the same root - meaning day-by-day. Kind of perfect, isn't it? Since we can only ever come home to ourselves moment-by-moment, day-by-day.
With love and encouragement,
Joanne