Writing

 I try to encourage everyone who is comfortable writing to write to help heal yourself and others. We all have had some pretty difficult experiences in life and by sharing some (if you are comfortable doing this) might help others facing similar things now.

I find writing about things that have been difficult for me to face very cathartic (cleansing and Healing). So, ever since my cousin who was 16 died in a car crash when I was about 8 years old in Glendale, California I have written to help survive and to heal myself. Being an only child I didn't have any brothers or sisters to console me or to console myself by helping them. Instead because it was 1956 mostly I was left alone to deal with all this at the time because I was supposed to be "sort of a man by age 4 anyway" which was how things really were then. After all, they had just given me a .22 rifle and bullets to keep in my closet to protect the family from harm which was traditional for boys who were trusted since at least the 1600s here in the U.S. We were supposed to shoot varmints or people that might harm the family. 

However, this was before the Viet Nam war of course when  a lot of this changed. So, I was a good shot with a rifle at 100 yards by age 10 as a direct result. And later my father's friend from world war II gave me a 9 shot .22 revolver and a world War II army officers holster for it too. So, by 10 or 11 I had two .22 firearms in my closet at home with .22 long rifle bullets at least 50 of them that worked in both guns in an emergency.

The point of this is not to talk about guns which were a part of the 1950s and before for almost all boys and all my friends were given .22 rifles by the time they were 10 years old too. I was just one of the first because my Grandmother was from Texas originally.

Anyway, writing I found was a way to heal the pain of a lot of experiences in life. Often you have no one to talk to about what you are experiencing (especially in the 1950s) so because I was a good writer since at least 4th grade and a good speller I often wrote and doodled (cartoon drawings) on a spiral notebook that I kept also for school work at that time in the 1950s and early 1960s.

So, in 7th grade I took a summer course and learned to type pretty fast on a typewriter that summer which was likely 1960 when President Kennedy was elected in the fall a couple of years before he was assassinated.

At first I could type 30 words a minute by the end of the typing course. But, over time I have gone up to about 60 words a minute or more (but I still have to eventually go back and correct any spelling or context errors. But, since I can type basically as fast as I can talk this works pretty good for me in keeping information of all kinds flowing into my blogs.

The point is that learning to write down what is bothering you can help heal you too.

Just being able to ask useful questions about what is happening in your life or to you or around you might help you survive to be 30 which is a good goal.

My most difficult years to survive were likely 10 to 15 and 21 to 25 where it was difficult to stay alive.

However, I have been pretty happy constantly since I was forced to retire in 1998 at age 50 because of a heart virus. If I hadn't retired then Doctors told me I would have surely died like most people did then of the type of heart virus I had then between Fall of 1998 and May of 1999.

So, writing can help you stay alive and live a longer more happy and fulfilling life.

By God's Grace