Permission To Write My True Feelings

by Anna

When I was a child and a teenager, I was not allowed to talk about what was happening in my family of origin. Even when all of the neighbors believed that we were safe and warm inside our clean, medium sized suburban home, the storms inside those walls were so often raging. The clouds grew darker than the night, thunder rattled our very foundation, and the lightning only served to illuminate the truth for a moment before all went dark again.

As a child I could see the truth in the storm. My face wore an almost constant look of sadness. That was before I learned to smile to hide all of the emotions that my family would not allow.

Then one day when I was in grade school, my teacher read us all a poem. It was a Robert Frost poem called, "The Tuft of Flowers". As I listened to her read, something happened to me. By the time the teacher had finished, I had fallen deeply and unconditionally in love with the written word. Somehow the pencil that I was holding took on a meaning and purpose that I had not felt with anything else in my life. I suddenly became more aware of my hands and realized that they were tingling. From that day on, I wrote.

The only means of writing for me when I was at home was a little blue diary that my Aunt had given me for Christmas. I picked the diary up and began to write in it. At first I wrote about simple things like how my cat would sleep on top of my blanket at night. Then, I wrote something that I would later regret. I wrote, "My mother doesn't love me. I want to run away." I was writing this at the kitchen table, when I heard my mother come through the front door. I quickly took the diary and hid it in a cabinet and then ran to my room.

That night my mother angrily came into my room. She was holding the diary. She had opened it and read it. She had violated the beautiful love that I had in me for writing. I felt as if I had been robbed of one of the most important things in my life. My diary was my soul. It was a friend that I could say anything to. It was my only shelter from the storm.

After that, I began to write in poems. I had learned to write in a way that my mother could not understand. I had learned this from the tuft of flowers.

When I got a little older, I wrote a short story about the dangers of taking drugs. When I mustered enough courage, I went up to my mother and handed her the story. I thought that she would be proud of me for writing about not taking drugs. After she read the story, she looked down at me. I will never forget what she said. She said, "Anna, do you really think this is going make any difference? Other people have written about this so much better than you have." Then she handed the story back to me and walked away.

I held the story in my hands for a little while, and then I walked over to the trash can and threw it away. It was no good.

I did not write again until I became a teenager. When I was a teenager I had notebooks full of poetry. Every night I would write my poems while listening to singers like Judy Collins, Jim Croce, and Simon and Garfunkle. I dreamed of being a song writer one day.

When I grew up, somehow I lost my writing. I'm not sure what happened to it. There were times that I could write, and I would fill pages of my diaries with poetry and short stories, and then, as if a candle had been put out, I would lose it again. A friend once told me that I should try to get some of my poems published. I looked at her and said, "Someone else could have written them better. It's just not good enough." It was as if a part of my very soul was missing.

I'm not sure why, but I just don't feel like myself if I cannot write. It's not only that I want to write, it's that I have to write. It's a part of who I am as a person.

I suffered from writer's block for so many years that I just began to accept it. I told myself that there was more to life than writing and I tried to concentrate on other things.

Then a year ago I wrote an e-mail to Bill DeFoore telling him how good I thought his products were. He told me about his blog site and invited me to write on it. I began writing about my little dog Ginger who had died of an enlarged heart. I cried the whole time I was writing it. The intense grief that I was feeling had made me forget all about my writer's block. After that, I felt something resurfacing inside of myself. I began to feel safe to write.

The writing began as a feeling in my body that would not go away. I began to write one story after another about the truth of my childhood. I learned to keep a box of tissues next to the computer because I just could not stop crying the whole time I was writing the stories. I was surprised yet encouraged every time Dr. DeFoore would decide to put the stories on his blog site. To me, some of the stories of my childhood were so very frightening. When he included my story "My Uncle Phil" on his site I turned to my husband and said, "If he's willing to put that story on there, then I can just write about anything on this blog site". My experience with my Uncle Phil was one of the most frightening things that happened to me when I was a child.

Little by little the storms of my childhood became less dark and foreboding. I still cry when I read the stories that I wrote, but I am so much more healed than when I first put them on the blog site. At one time I was so overwhelmed by the stories of my past that I asked to have the stories taken off of the site. I have since put all of the stories back on.

I am still working on trying to be more confident about writing and expressing myself. I know that I have come a long way already. I believe in combining confidence with humility, and I do my best to do that. However, I still have a lot more humility than confidence when it comes to writing.

Now, when I think about the people who have taught and encouraged me the most about writing and expressing myself, I will always think about the teacher in grade school who read "The Tuft of Flowers", Robert Frost, and Bill DeFoore.

Response from Dr. DeFoore

Thanks for this contribution, Anna. Your story points to what happens to a lot of us around creativity and expression in childhood. The benefit of writing is tremendous, as you point out. That is why I started this blog writing part of my site. I'm so glad it has helped you.

My very best to you,

Dr. DeFoore

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