The speaking voice

First, I'd like to thank everyone who's written or spoken to me about the interview on Nine to Noon last week, or has made earlier comments on this blog. It's been very heartening, and reassuring.
           I did, and sometimes still do, feel rather nervous about "going public" in relation to an experience which is very personal, and therefore might be seen as something that it isn't appropriate to speak of even in a blog, let alone on national radio. But as far as I could see, everyone who took the time and trouble to respond understood what I am trying to do.
            As I said in the interview, I'm a writer - and so was Harvey. The way we make sense of what's happening to us is by writing about it, and talking about what we're writing. What's more, when you can no longer talk to the person with whom you used to share your life, and in particular you can't talk to them about the experience of losing them, writing enables you to feel that you can speak about what's happening to you in a different way. And that's exactly what I'm trying to do in my writing - give the sense of a voice speaking to the reader.
             Not all of this writing is made public - some of it is solely for me. But most writing is meant to be read, or "heard", by others, and that means "publishing" it, making it public, either here or in the memoir I'm putting together. The hope is that they will find it relevant to their own lives, and perhaps even useful, if only because it shows that someone else is having a similar experience to theirs. But before it can be useful to them, it has to be useful to me - and that's why the need to make sense of my life for myself is where I start.