Fast forward a year…

What the notebooks show.

Our wonderful writing group https://belperscribesthelibrary.com recently celebrated our first birthday. We ate cake, sang to ourselves ‘Happy Birthday’ and reflected on all we had accomplished.

Our happy band of writers have all grown in different ways, as people and friends as well as in what is written on the page of our many and varied notebooks.

I shall write about this in my sequel to Love, Labour and Loss in a piece entitled ‘Finding Your People’.

However, it is to those notebooks that I turn now.

In moving forward as writers, we set ourselves the challenge of finding our original writing from a year ago and in the group, we will share pieces we have written that we are most proud of. I can’t wait to hear what everyone has chosen and revisit their beautiful writing once more.

So last night, I retrieved my notebooks from the year…

Yes, I have a little obsession with these blue journals! My late mum bought me No 1 as one of her last Christmas presents to me and it was the book I wrote her eulogy in - the piece which began it all.

Since then I have sourced matching ones from resale sites but sadly I cannot find anywhere No 4! I am slightly (majorly) distressed at the fact I may have to start writing in a different style book.

I digress.. it is not the external aspect of these books that moved me last night, as I took a trip back over a year’s worth of writing.

I knew of course that I wrote every single word of my book by hand, in blue pen and in these books which sat before me.

But seeing how they started and knowing complete strangers are reading the same words and responding positively to them in their polished, published form , was humbling.

This scribble became one of my favourite chapters featuring ‘Winter friends’. A piece I read out loud at my book launch.

This piece focusing on how I was seeking solace in swimming at a time when I was struggling to stay afloat in my grief.

This was not the only page I saw which was tear stained!

The chapter dedicated to the man who knows me most - ‘the husband’! This was a slightly later chapter to be written- not because he isn’t important but because he was the one consistent presence in a time in which I felt almost ‘sea sick’ and his ability to calm me was almost taken for granted.

Looking at these originals a year on, certain things hit me.

• Our written words can reveal so much of ourselves at dark periods of our lives. Raw emotion poured out on the page.

• It is ok for there to be scribbles, crossings out and tear strains blemishing the page.

• We must never underestimate the power of our words.

• Barely anything has changed in my text from what is seen here to what is on sale in published form, landing on doorsteps.

• Everything has changed for me since that time in so many ways.

So to conclude.. writer friends, winter friends and friends who are no longer present …

I urge you to write through your feelings.

Let it flow.

No judgement is necessary.

The physical process of committing to paper your innermost thoughts, is enormously beneficial in your recovery.

It matters not that these words have a reader.

They are your truth.

Let me know if you start this free flow healing practice of writing your feelings out.

And maybe, just maybe, those words in helping you, may in the future help others.

For once, I have no adequate words except…

Thank you 🙏

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