Postcards & Letters From Life

So this week after years of thinking about it I started the launching of my email subscription. Yes it does sound like an event although in reality it is just me taking time to teach myself the integrations between my website, an email hosting site, and picking up on the creative layout where my Virtual Assistant left off. Technology and I have long been an on and off relationship. I love it when it works and happily hand over the inner workings to those that know - the back-end of any business was never my thing I was always a front-of-house kind of girl. Yes I have stories aplenty of my years in tourism and hospitality. By the way on a side note have you watched Boiling Point on SBS? This series which I am enjoying is bringing back memories especially of my time as a nineteen year old working at Wrest Point Federal Casino in Hobart.

Stories I have many of them. Some I chose to forget for years, some I haven’t felt comfortable sharing because as you know our stories are often other people’s stories too. My family though have all gone now and my children have given me permission to write whatever I care to. My mother, my father, my sister, my grandparents, all contributed to the person I am today. I wish I could talk to them, ask them questions, add their perceptions of our story to mine. But it is too late.

It has been a dream of mine to write on a regular basis. When I was younger I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to write stories about people and life and relationships. Always relationships. I would have liked to be an Agony Aunt. I remember a column that was in the Weekend Australian by Ruth Ostrow. I loved her column, in fact I went to hear her speak once when she came to Hobart, I was such a fan. I was always fascinated by human behaviour, the why’s of it all. I thought I had found my answers to everything when I first studied Sociology in the early 1980’s however a career in sociological analysis and research was not a realistic option at that time for me and I chose Social Work instead. More on the years of study another time. My first letter in Postcards & Letters From Life became a sharing of how I came to be here and the reason I chose the work I did.

I don’t remember when my writing started including observations of people around me. Sice I was a child I had kept journals - well we used to just call them diaries and I have travel diaries from 1968 and the collection of teenage angst dating back to 1969. For the record that pouring out of my feelings on paper continued to be evidence of repetitive behavious for decades. when I read several of my journals before a cathartic burning in 2020 I was determined to break the cycle of emotional distress and unhelpful reactions to the behaviour of others. I had not heard of Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory as it had not been written then and while I did understand many other theories I was totally unable (or unwilling) to put them into effect in my own life.

What I did do often was jot down observations about people and then wonder how my life might be similar or different in the present or the future. I remember being at the hairdresser once and sitting in the upstairs window looking down on a busy Cafe strip in Hobart. I noticed a group of women, they were old in my mind but probably the age I am now. They were laughing and giggling and clearly out for a girl’s lunch, they looked so happy and I started wondering (and writing) about what their stories might be. What was it I wondered that made people happy? Were they actually happy or was there something behind their external appearance that I the unobserved observer didn’t know? No wonder I eventually found my way to being a Therapist. People have always been my interest, no it’s more than that, people - their stories, their relationships, their dynamics, their hopes and dreams - have always been my thing. “Thing” is not the best word but I can’t think what other word says it, “passion” seems too intense and a bit like a stalker.

When I started travelling solo as a middle aged woman I began writing more, some of my experiences inspired short fictional pieces and many I wished I could somehow be sending as postcards to people who needed some encouragement to take a trip on their own. You know those sayings about not putting things off, take the trip buy the shoes, untie the bow strings and set sail, do the things you might one day regret that you didn’t. Well I suppose I could say I did a version of them all. The solo roadtrips in England, the unplanned months in Italy, the travel with no return booking, the romantic encounters, the meeting of new people, the being whoever I chose to be. It sounds adventurous and it was. It was also lonely at times and a reminder often that we take ourselves with us wherever we go. In other words no matter how far I went from home or what experiences I had I still needed to work on me. I am still working on me although I am much more aware of what I need to work on. What is that you might wonder? Same as my clients and my readers: self acceptance, forgiveness, and lots of grief.

I set up a domain around six years ago called ‘A Postcard Story’ where I parked many stories and unpublished posts. I was always hesitant to publish anything that might upset someone, I really did worry about what people thought more than anyone would have realised. I have always had a lot of confidence but lower self worth. One time at a public event I was invited to read something I had written, it was about me but written in the third person as fiction. I was so nervous I almost couldn’t speak my mouth was so dry. Afterwards, so many people told me how much they could relate to the story and wanted to hear and know more. I have a few like that, about me but not just about me, about Everywoman, that woman we all understand.

So Postcards & Letters From Life is about me and it is also about you, your friends, your parents, your children. I have been observing and having conversations with people for decades. In all my work over the years I have been talking to people, long before I became a Therapist. Now I hear stories every day, in my work yes, but also in the supermarket, on the beach walking our dog, anywhere I might meet a stranger. When you are open to listening it is wonderful what people will share. I love this. Now I’m going to share my stories and what I might call Everywoman and Everyman stories. We really do all share so many similar life events and experiences, but we don’t always realise this and that can make us feel alone. At the risk of sounding like the Narrator from Bridgerton: You and I Dear Reader have a lot in common. Please subscribe to my email (it’s free) and please share the details with anyone you think might like to be part of this next story.

With you,

Karen 💕