A Long Term Relationship

10/12/24

As far back as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed creative writing. Even as a very young child I felt the joy of getting lost in the process, finding the peace that came from self expression.

For multiple reasons, I let it go almost completely during my marriage to EH; fear of him prying and mocking was a large part of it, but also, throughout that marriage, I lacked the capacity to access that part of myself.

Written words have always been my escape, my toys, my weapons, my allies. How awful, to have been in a relationship that left me so depleted I could no longer find words to express myself.

I can still remember the first poem I created.

I was around seven and had gone in the car with mother to pick up some shopping. When we arrived, she told me it would be quicker and easier if I stayed in the car while she ran around and did the errands.

Somewhat predictably I started to whine, so she told me that she wouldn’t be long, and by the time she came back she wanted me to have made up a poem about chimneys.

Up for a challenge, I waved her off.

I then swung myself around in the front passenger seat, legs up and over the back of the chair, back on the seat, head dangling into the footwell.

Seven year old me found it easier to think upside-down, apparently.

This was my masterpiece:

There are many chimneys in my street,
And when I sit down to eat,
I count;
Sometimes twenty-four,
Sometimes more,
But whenever I count,
There’s a different amount.

Jessica Palmer (age 7)

Mother was gratifyingly, suitably impressed.

When I was nine my younger brother, Dean, was born. Eventually he grew up enough to start liking books and stories, so I took to writing little tales for him. He particularly liked Dummy Dumpling and the Cheese:

An anthropomorphised dumpling is left home alone, with admonishments to behave, not raid the fridge, and to do his school work.

The Dumpling does his homework but as time ticks by and his mother hasn’t returned, he starts to get hungry. The Dumpling is particularly partial to cheese so he gets a block from the fridge and scoops lumps out of it with a little spoon.

Worried he’ll get into trouble, he uses soap to fill in the holes, feeling proud of the excellent ‘fix up’ job.

His mother comes home, sees him sitting quietly, work all done, and says that as a reward for being so good, he can have cheese on toast for tea….

Throughout school, English literature was the one subject I would reliably apply myself to. Once I got to secondary school I was regularly praised for my creative writing, having a couple of articles published in the school ‘news’ paper, and once winning a writing competition.

I continued to write for my own pleasure into adulthood.

At various stages in my life I’d use writing therapeutically, as well as imaginatively. Journaling was particularly important to me, having been introduced to the whole concept of writing in detail about your life by reading Anne Frank’s diary.

The impact of that book on my life is a subject for another time; in brief I’ll say my world view shifted completely, and her writings and life continue to inspire and grieve me.

However, journaling always carried, for me, the fear that others would discover and read my little notebooks. It happened, twice, and I lost my trust in truthful writing.

When my second marriage broke down, I turned to writing again. As there was just me and my young son Kieran in the house, I had the privacy to feel safe expressing myself freely.

I remember the night I picked up a pen, and smoothed open the cover of a new notebook, intending to recommence my journaling habit, only to discover there was a whole other, invented story inside me, wanting to be told.

It was a very odd experience – it’s like these people just came to life in my head and ran the show. I’d sit down planning to write a particular plotline, but what would come out was not that at all!

I rapidly stopped handwriting it and moved to the computer, the speedy clacking of keys and a ferociously whacked space bar going on late into the night as the story flowed out of me.

For months my characters were with me at all times; like their lives were a film running in my head. I lived it. I loved it. To my astonishment, It became a full blown novel.

Eventually, having had positive feedback from people I’d allowed to read it, I decided to try my luck at getting it published.

Being in a very different confidence space back then, I shot for the moon, and sent sample chapters to Ali Gunn, who was one of the top agents at the time.

The response I got, hand scrawled on a compliment slip, was insanely validating: “This one’s not for me, but I like your writing style and would be interested to read anything else you write.”

Oh. My. God!!!

I was so excited. Everyone around me was so excited. I was drawing up a rough idea for something new.

And then I met EH.

He didn’t see my writing, or my note from Ali Gunn, as anything real or meaningful. He wanted to go out boozing, and to spend every night together.

So in order to make him happy, and keep him with me, I stopped writing and devoted my time and self to him.

Big mistake.

Fast-forward some 20+ years, January 1st of this year, he walked out and I picked up a pen again.

I’ve written, in some form or another, every day since. By doing this, I’ve recognised and reclaimed a huge and important part of myself.

I’m not purporting to be some great author, nor do I really have aspirations to be such. Despite putting this out publicly, I essentially write for myself. Writing frees me, heals me, transports me, reveals things to me.

Never again will I give up something so valuable to me.

Never again will I forgo my journaling for fear of prying eyes. Such disrespectful, boundary destroying, untrustworthy people won’t be permitted into my space ever again. I can write without fear, now and forever.

Nor will I quash creativity so that someone else can use my time as they see fit. Creativity deserves its own, prioritised time, and anyone worthy of being with me will understand that.

I come back to my mantra, that I’ll come out of this divorce as more, not less; taking back power and control over my own creativity and self expression does make me more.

Identifying and expressing my true self is, in essence, the purpose of this whole healing process I’m taking myself through.

By embracing and taking full ownership of this need in me to write, I’m starting to define for myself who I really am; I empower myself for the future.

Go me!

MUSIC OF THE DAY:

JP