Sometimes the words just rush out.
The little things are perfect to write about at any age
You need to start writing when you are young and then review it when you are old. That is what a perfect life review would be like. But for most of us, myself included, I did not write when I was young and only in middle age have discovered the purpose of personal histories.
So this week when I was at the bank and the teller said something about her strong feelings about sending her daughter off to school this year, I told her to write about them as a letter to her daughter and then share the letter when her child was graduating from high school. The bank teller was in her twenties and when I told her about the special thought and feeling she had now would never be recaptured years later writing about it. She loved the idea and was going to go home that night and write. She was thrilled with the idea and I never mentioned life story writing which it really is.
This past September my friend Cathy was lamenting the idea of her oldest child going off to college I suggested she write about she remembered of her first days at college and also her feelings about her own daughter going off to college. She should put the letters away for the prefect time to share them with her years from now. Cathy asked me why she had never thought to do that and it would help her sort out her feelings about her children growing up.
These little love letters make a world of difference to those people who receive them. It gives them true understanding of a loving parent. It is a way of capturing a moment of time that will never be lived again and sharing it with the major participant in the story but that participant is way too young to get the understanding and meaning of that moment. Writing about those special moments and putting them away to be shared later is just one way to write your life story. It really does not have to 200 pages written at lifeâs end but bits and pieces throughout your life. It is more than journaling since those most often stay private and record daily your full range of feelings.
This is about writing about the special times in your life like the birth of a child, the day they went off to kindergarten, went on their first over night, entered high school, learned to drive, started their first job, graduated from high school and then went off to college. They all can be shared when they get married or even on their 30th birthday. What a gift and you did not need to be old or on your deathbed to share them. There are no words that would ever replace Momâs or Dadâs feelings about those major life events for a child. Your child is unique and those special days and feelings about them might be totally different for each one of your children. Some may be artist, some maybe musicians and some athletes and each might have a different effect on what makes them special to you and writing about those feelings is a perfect way to share yourself with each one of your children. It is the perfect that takes a few moments as they grow up but it will be received as if you have given them a ton of gold.
