Pensieve

by Lori Dwyer on June 5, 2012 · 11 comments

My iPad is my Pensieve.

That’s not a typo, nor is it Lori making words up. If you’re a Harry Potter, you’ll recognize the word as one of JK Rowling’s, and it’s another of those words I’ve been seeking for some time now.

“What is it?”

“This? It is called a Pensieve. I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.”

“I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.”

“You mean… that stuff’s your thoughts?”

“Certainly.”

On days and nights (like today) when my head it too full of thoughts and words and ideas, and I feel restless and agitated and misunderstood, I turn to my iPad with its flat, on screen keyboard, and type.

Unashamedly stolen from here.

I type out the pain and frustration, the loneliness and trauma. I empty my mind onto a blank white screen, allow the thoughts to untangle themselves and rush out, bleed the poison from old wounds. I don’t get to jump in afterwards (thank goodness…), but I take so much comfort in knowing that other people become immersed in my world, see things through my eyes. Walk through old buildings with me. Sit in hospital waiting rooms with me. Be a pair of eyes on the wall as I date again. Watch me struggle with two independent, grieving children.

I take my thoughts and splash and weave them onto the screen. It’s the ultimate in therapy. Without somewhere to place the weight of all this thinking, I just may burst from the pressure of it.

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