Sunday Blog 185 – 18 May 2025
This week I tuned into a podcast all about memoir and journalling, just after returning from my recent Bali writing retreat. While there, I finished transcribing my 2006-2010 journal. (Procrastination about editing the memoir? How very dare you!)
Among other things, the podcast episode highlighted that journalling can sometimes be more effective than therapy. While that may or may not be true, one thing is certain. A re-read of journals can be a chance to re-acquaint yourself with the people you used to be. (Like that stranger who wanted to learn golf!) Journals can also reveal how we may have re-told experiences over the years which aren’t strictly, well, true.
Take Engagement Ring Gate. In 2008 my partner proposed in a kind of “let’s build the extension and let’s get married” sort of way. There was little certainty in his wording, and certainly no ring.
Engagement Ring Gate has been one of our go-to squabbles. I asserted that I had wanted an engagement ring, but in fact, what my journal pages revealed was this. Many women had said to me if they had their time over again, they would skip the engagement ring and get diamonds in the wedding band. So that’s what I chose, and that’s what I got.
And yet I still whinged.
My journal pages gifted me a sharp lesson in practising gratitude rather than carping about the past. Accepting what is and moving forward.
Darling husband cautiously received my belated apology for EngagementRing Gate, and has only joked about it once. So far.