Reader Response

Article: Taking Inventory of the Roles We Play

Thanks for sharing this info. Just got to it this am as I've been away but thought you might be interested in some insights that came during this brief time. A therapist had asked me just before I left if I'd experienced any traumatic events as a child and, from a professional point of view I only thought of abuse (sexual or physical) and/or death of parent so I said no. But on this trip I began to think about a series of seemingly innocous (not ALL) events that occurred within a 2 1/2 to 3 year time period that I think are pretty significant. Then, on my last day my brother and I went riding around the country side looking at old houses we'd lived in (actually one of them was a pile of rubble - my favorite house and his least favorite and we only lived there a few months) and I later made a list of events that occurred in that brief approx. 3 year span (immediately following on the heels of the previous ones) and I realized there was lot of optimism, joy, confidence and sense of community. That summer (1952) when I turned 16 I went away for my senior year to a church owned boarding school and that was the last year I'd ever truly felt confident about myself and had a strong sense of community. Pretty shocking to have known for many years that you didn't feel connected to community, that you didn't belong anywhere and to realize it had been 50 years! Looking forward to doing your exercises as part of my current 3 pages a day of journaling.

J.G.

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