Lost Words

Isn't it funny when you sit back to think after a long period of time has gone by and see all the things that have changed? Solely questioning when or why it happened? Some things have changed with direct intent and other things have changed while we hardly notice. Then one day (likely while you're cooking dinner) you think — "How and when did that happen?"

While preparing my daughter's go-to choice for dinner, tacos, of course, I was dreaming of a stress-free world. While the hamburger was sizzling away in the pan, I picked up my phone to scroll Facebook and saw the advertisement for Vocal. My mind was intrigued. When did I stop writing? How did I stop writing? Just like that. Out of nowhere. Out of a scrolling newsfeed that I constantly feel is reading my mind. My brain entered the long-term memory bank filling my thoughts with the days of picking up a pen and paper, writing everything I could think of on those blue lines. Memoirs of recapped moments in letters to friends and bearing my soul to those I loved. My body felt the ache of staying up till wee morning hours finishing 60-page recounts of the conversations I would have with children facing barriers. The reward was always worth the lack of sleep. Why did I stop writing?

I remember being introduced to "pen pals" while living in Beausejour, Manitoba. My Grade 3 teacher was obviously either an English major or an Art major because everything we did was very creative learning. Being in French Immersion, all our work was in French. This teacher used our class favorite book, The Jolly Postman by Allan Ahlberg, to have us recreate our own version of the story plus create the art work. This is was one of my favorite assignments that is impossible to forget. She wrote to me in French over the summer, and what stands out the most is that she always sent the most artistic stationary filled with her adventures, not a word in English. Her handwriting so curvy and fluent, it made me want to keep writing to her, and I did until I found other methods of putting words to good use.

Someone gave me a diary. The diary was so old that the spine of the book was no longer attached to the white pages. The dark brown leather cover was secured with a golden lock which held all my eight-year-old thoughts. Some days I would get mad and scribble in the pages. Other days I would write about how I wished I had friends on the farm other than my two dogs, two cats, and the 90-year-old neighbors that lived a bike ride away. Some pages were filled with boys names and hearts surrounding them, yet I cannot for the life of me remember who they are.

After Grade 3, we moved back to Selkirk, Manitoba, where writing became a little more real for me. I missed the friends I had from the school in Beausejour and would write to my one friend who would come visit me in Selkirk. The thrill of receiving a letter in the mail, ripping it open, indulging in the contents (and not wanting it to end), then preparing to respond was the beginning of my love for words. By my fifth year of school, my family was becoming a blended household introducing a male figure and his daughter, my new step-sister. I had not given up on writing at this point because I still had my diary, but friends were calling on the phone, inviting me over to hang out, and I didn't feel like I had anyone to write to. I basically stopped writing again until we arrived in Pinawa, Manitoba. By this time, I was in Grade 7 & 8 where popularity became a phase.

I had some really great friends in Pinawa, and there were also the people who were not very nice. The ones who were not very nice called me names, picked apart my appearance, and tried to turn others against me. Ultimately, it didn't matter because by the end of Grade 8 I had realized who my real friends were in that town. We would write notes at home and at school. At home was no problem, but at school, it was often in Science or English classes where we thought we didn't have to pay attention. We were so naïve. If I knew what I know now, I would have grasped onto the interesting topics those elementary school teachers strived to teach us. We were too busy finding creative ways to fold our drama into squares small enough to slip from one friend to the other. The drama of who liked who and what girl was acting out towards the rest of the group of girls. The notes revealed the risks of the older girls experimenting with smoking, drinking, and sex. The notes described why we were grounded and how much our parents drove us crazy. This went on for many years in groups of females that I grew to know. My step-sister and I also found a way to deal with pre-teenage life by writing. We had at least two notebooks during the years we lived together. As our parents would tell us it was time to go to bed, we would plan to write in the notebook. One of us would start and sit on the floor in our room delivering the notebook by sliding it as hard as we could across the carpet flooring. If the notebook didn't make it across the hall, whoever was closest would have to be VERY quiet and sneak it back to the bedroom without the parentals hearing. Those are good memories.

It was a form of internal release to write notes which became letters. By my Grade 10 year of the public education system, between my friends and I we would have had solid autobiographies written. Our every feeling about every aspect of our lives were written in those notes. Shoeboxes and shoeboxes filled with notes. We treated it like a contest of who could write the longest letter. Oh, how our minds came up with 5–10 pages of teenage thoughts. My friend who lived on an island, in a small Ontario town I had migrated to, would write absolutely every detail about her social group and their adventures. She would top off every letter she wrote to me with a drawing, usually her little alien friend "Pete." Pete would vary in his appearance. Sometimes Pete would be wearing a sideways hat, giving peace.A couple times, he was smoking a joint. That girl had some mad writing power. It would take her a couple days but once you got that letter it was a solid 10 pages of juicy descriptive high school fun. I'm not too sure at what point those letters got destroyed, but somehow Pete was salvaged on a few occasions.

To be perfectly honest, I am no English Literature major. I did not do extraordinarily well in my English grades over the years. I do have a variety of skills, experiences, and interests which have formed my passion for words, psychology, and relationships. I am far from an expert on the topic, but when did I stop writing how all these things made me feel? Fast forward into my 30s and I haven't written my thoughts down on paper for at least nine years with the exception of my college course assignments and a few scribbled notes here and there around the house. Perhaps I am missing out on a key piece of my self. It is obviously not the same kind of writing as it was back then. Now I have so many other feelings about the past, present, and future. I think it would be fun to go back and forth on the thoughts I wrote in those diaries and have my "adult" brain think about it. I was just at a training session in Dryden hosted by YATI – Youth Advocacy Training Institute where the definition of the word adult came up. My thoughts are simply that when we need to start looking at our children and remembering what we were like not that long ago. I honestly think my younger brain made some health-conscious decisions better than it has as an adult. Writing being one natural habit of communication I inhibited. Those words on paper were always there when I felt so down, so lonely, so broken.

Writing got me through the key time in my life when I truly felt hurt. When I cried so hard the tears poured on the paper as I wrote to someone who was so far away. Surprising it was so easy to write those letters considering the risk that those feelings could have easily been shared with those who it was not meant. This romance on paper with words ended up being a big waste of time ripped to tiny little pieces before it even had a chance. Even as bad as this pen pal relationship ended, the type of bond it built was irreplaceable. Back then I felt like I was able to express myself more intensely, more descriptive, more sensitive than my mouth and voicebox could ever portray.

This is where I stopped writing. I wrote only if I had to. Write an incident report. Write memos as needed. Write out the bills. Write on a whiteboard or a chalkboard. Write the kid's teacher a note on the agenda. While completing courses- indulge in the reports and assignments to collect and express my knowledge and opinions. But no thoughts and feelings on paper for about nine years. Until today. Today I feel like my words aren't really lost.

"As a writer, you try to listen to what other's aren't saying... and write about the silence." - N.R. Hart