I attended a “Healing Through Writing” workshop at Write’s On writing center today — an hour workshop they do monthly, though it was my first time in attendance. I registered for it a couple of months ago while looking for things to help fill up my weekends. And I had been missing Write On — I haven’t spent as much time there lately (I picked up a couple of volunteer Sundays later this month as well).
The workshop is not focused on craft — it’s simply the exercise of putting words on paper to help us process grief, whatever that may be. The facilitator led us through a brief meditation at the start, leading us through a meadow to a bench where someone would meet us — someone we needed to talk to. Maybe they had something to say to us or vice versa.
People wrote to loved ones who had died, but today I found myself on that bench — myself as a child.
I’ve done so much healing through writing already, including speaking to that inner child, but writing a few pages to myself and hearing their voice speak through me was a worthwhile exercise again today. I didn’t get what I thought I wanted and she carries that grief for me, small though it may be these days. After all, life may not have turned out how I wanted, but I didn’t know all the things I could want. All the things I could be. It’s all been so much more terrible and wonderful than my younger self could have comprehended. Though maybe I don’t give her enough credit. Maybe if she really did meet me on a bench by the water I’d relearn more about myself from her than the other way around.
With Love,
Natalie