A left-handed diary entry.
I am currently typing this with my left hand and I am not left-handed. It will take me much longer than normal to write my blog but as my car is in the garage today, I am housebound with nothing better to do.
I am not one to drone on and on about my ailments. I only really talk about it to my family or to friends that know that I'm not going to drone on and on about it for too long. If people ask, I tell them but most of the time my pain is recorded in my writing. My pain diary. It is not a happy read. In fact, it would be silly to ever read it back because it is page after page of pain and painful thoughts. I get it out, every few days, and write about what hurts and what doesn't, what treatment I'm having, what pills I'm taking. I write it down and get it out of my system so that I'm not consumed by it and so that I can lead a normal life most of the time. It is my therapy.
I have kept a diary since I was a young teenager. I wrote about growing pains, wanting a nose job after someone called me Concorde, about having knock knees and pigeon toes. I wrote about being so flat chested and skinny that people still thought I was a boy at 14. I wrote about certain horrible school teachers, being annoyed with my parents and being more annoyed with my sister. I wrote endlessly about trips out with the family and how long the car journey took. I wrote in ridiculous detail about lunches and suppers and meals out, recording what each person had ordered and if they'd enjoyed it. We had a VHS recorder and the first video shop had opened in town so every single video we rented was written about and analysed, from storyline to enjoyment factor. As I got older the diary entries became longer, my writing became smaller and extra pages were inserted and taped in place. I had started writing about boys!
My mid-teen diaries bulge with information and are held together with elastic bands and string. I wrote about fancying boys and wondering what it would be like to kiss them. Ten pages about a particular boy, listing what he wore and how he looked, writing down every word he uttered to me. And then, only days later, that boy would miraculously disappear from my diary, to be replaced with a new crush, a new name. I was at a private girls school at the time so interactions with boys were sparse. We knew the local village boys but they were just irritating. We had family friends but they were like brothers and then we had the all-boys school that we had monthly disco's with. I can feel the awkwardness with such clarity when I read these diaries back. Excruciating verbal exchanges, embarrassing slow dances and nervous wet kisses. I wrote about my first proper French kiss after a night out at a roller disco and being caught in my parent's car headlights as they came to pick me up. I wrote about meeting my first proper boyfriend and being allowed to hang out in his bedroom. In my house, boys weren't even allowed upstairs so many pages were devoted to this brand new territory. But the pain was always there too. Of being let down, being disappointed and being lied to. My girl friends, a very tight group, began to split apart when boys became more of a focus. I wrote about betrayal for the first time, of how hurt I could be by my friends.
And as the years went on, I wrote about more serious boyfriends, about music and bands, getting my first car, going to pubs and weekends away. But the pattern of my writing started to change. There were no longer daily entries, logging my every movement and thought, I now wrote in chunks of time, of particular upsets, of meaningful events. As I entered my early 20's, there were months of blank pages and then suddenly an eruption of emotion would appear, a flurry of hurried angry words, written with such speed and angst that the paper is ripped and tears have blurred the words. Pain and emotion became the focus of these entries. Why became my most overused word. As life became busier, larger gaps appeared. No diaries for 1988, 89 or 90, when I moved to America. I began keeping larger sketch books with beautiful hardback covers and writing would be interspersed with drawings, lists or memorabilia stuck into the pages. Odd sheets of folded paper will sometimes fall out of these books, as I pack them in boxes when I move from house to house, and I will unfold them and find a sad paragraph, written on a whim. There are also letters and cards I've written that remain unsent, and they always unsettle me a bit. I re-read them and wonder if I should send them to the people that hurt me, now, after all these years? I don't.
Someone once told me, my surgeon I think, that people don't remember pain. Your memory of pain subsides, it's something the brain does to cope. Your memories of happiness remain though, and I know, between all the gaps in my diary entries, the hundreds upon thousands of days where no words are recorded, that I was, and am happy. There is no pain in the blank pages and those days far outweigh the painful ones I am relieved to say. I still write about loss and pain and frustration but I also write about love and life and adventure. There must always be some light in the darkness I think. Writing is my catharsis, even today, when I have only one working left hand and six paragraphs have taken me 3 hours. It's ok though, I don't mind. Maybe at the age of 49 I can teach myself to be ambidextrous. That would be handy.
I am not one to drone on and on about my ailments. I only really talk about it to my family or to friends that know that I'm not going to drone on and on about it for too long. If people ask, I tell them but most of the time my pain is recorded in my writing. My pain diary. It is not a happy read. In fact, it would be silly to ever read it back because it is page after page of pain and painful thoughts. I get it out, every few days, and write about what hurts and what doesn't, what treatment I'm having, what pills I'm taking. I write it down and get it out of my system so that I'm not consumed by it and so that I can lead a normal life most of the time. It is my therapy.
I have kept a diary since I was a young teenager. I wrote about growing pains, wanting a nose job after someone called me Concorde, about having knock knees and pigeon toes. I wrote about being so flat chested and skinny that people still thought I was a boy at 14. I wrote about certain horrible school teachers, being annoyed with my parents and being more annoyed with my sister. I wrote endlessly about trips out with the family and how long the car journey took. I wrote in ridiculous detail about lunches and suppers and meals out, recording what each person had ordered and if they'd enjoyed it. We had a VHS recorder and the first video shop had opened in town so every single video we rented was written about and analysed, from storyline to enjoyment factor. As I got older the diary entries became longer, my writing became smaller and extra pages were inserted and taped in place. I had started writing about boys!
My mid-teen diaries bulge with information and are held together with elastic bands and string. I wrote about fancying boys and wondering what it would be like to kiss them. Ten pages about a particular boy, listing what he wore and how he looked, writing down every word he uttered to me. And then, only days later, that boy would miraculously disappear from my diary, to be replaced with a new crush, a new name. I was at a private girls school at the time so interactions with boys were sparse. We knew the local village boys but they were just irritating. We had family friends but they were like brothers and then we had the all-boys school that we had monthly disco's with. I can feel the awkwardness with such clarity when I read these diaries back. Excruciating verbal exchanges, embarrassing slow dances and nervous wet kisses. I wrote about my first proper French kiss after a night out at a roller disco and being caught in my parent's car headlights as they came to pick me up. I wrote about meeting my first proper boyfriend and being allowed to hang out in his bedroom. In my house, boys weren't even allowed upstairs so many pages were devoted to this brand new territory. But the pain was always there too. Of being let down, being disappointed and being lied to. My girl friends, a very tight group, began to split apart when boys became more of a focus. I wrote about betrayal for the first time, of how hurt I could be by my friends.
And as the years went on, I wrote about more serious boyfriends, about music and bands, getting my first car, going to pubs and weekends away. But the pattern of my writing started to change. There were no longer daily entries, logging my every movement and thought, I now wrote in chunks of time, of particular upsets, of meaningful events. As I entered my early 20's, there were months of blank pages and then suddenly an eruption of emotion would appear, a flurry of hurried angry words, written with such speed and angst that the paper is ripped and tears have blurred the words. Pain and emotion became the focus of these entries. Why became my most overused word. As life became busier, larger gaps appeared. No diaries for 1988, 89 or 90, when I moved to America. I began keeping larger sketch books with beautiful hardback covers and writing would be interspersed with drawings, lists or memorabilia stuck into the pages. Odd sheets of folded paper will sometimes fall out of these books, as I pack them in boxes when I move from house to house, and I will unfold them and find a sad paragraph, written on a whim. There are also letters and cards I've written that remain unsent, and they always unsettle me a bit. I re-read them and wonder if I should send them to the people that hurt me, now, after all these years? I don't.
Someone once told me, my surgeon I think, that people don't remember pain. Your memory of pain subsides, it's something the brain does to cope. Your memories of happiness remain though, and I know, between all the gaps in my diary entries, the hundreds upon thousands of days where no words are recorded, that I was, and am happy. There is no pain in the blank pages and those days far outweigh the painful ones I am relieved to say. I still write about loss and pain and frustration but I also write about love and life and adventure. There must always be some light in the darkness I think. Writing is my catharsis, even today, when I have only one working left hand and six paragraphs have taken me 3 hours. It's ok though, I don't mind. Maybe at the age of 49 I can teach myself to be ambidextrous. That would be handy.
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