The world, her dog, memories-dot, dot, dot.

Interesting. I’ve used writing as a way to process the emotions linked to some pretty unpleasant episodes in my past. I know that a lot of therapists advise one to write a letter (never meaning to send, a la Nights in White Satin). I’ve tried that, though the letter format doesn’t work for me, whereas more of a blog style recounting does.

I’ve had strong emotional responses when doing the writing, and realised many things I didn’t realise at the time of the experience (in each case at least 10 years prior, maybe many more). In most cases I’ve then just left the thing behind and moved on. But I have kept the writing. I have not revisited much of it (the idea being to move on) but, like you, if I have gone back to read any of it, the emotions are not there to feel. In my case I’m glad, since I really don’t want to be giving emotional space to those episodes/people. If they were accounts of happy times I guess I would feel some regret that the emotions had gone, but I have a feeling that wouldn’t be the case with something joyful, or with something essentially connected with joy. I say this because I wrote a lot of stuff about having to put my dogs to sleep. If I read those accounts (or think about it) I am reduced to a blubbering heap, still, but the dogs themselves brought so much joy, and are still in many ways a part of my life as we speak of them often. So I haven’t had cause to rid myself of any emotions related to them, pleasant or otherwise.

However, it sounds as if your blogs were about more happy times so I’m not sure what to make of the absence of emotion now. Is it important? Maybe. I don’t think it’s a bad or harmful thing, though. Just neutral. Maybe the act of writing emotions we don’t want (or need) to keep is a way of clearing out brain space. Maybe the very urge to write them was because your brain knew the matter was important but did not want to keep the full experience, for whatever reason.