I've been trying to eliminate some of the clutter lately - I'm quite the pack rat and even when you've got a full-sized house, you'll eventually fill it with stuff, then you have too much stuff and you have to get rid of some of it. I pulled out my big bin o'stuff today in the hopes that I could throw some of it away. In it I found tons of cards and some letters that people have sent me over the years. In high-school and part of college I was very meticulous about filing letters and cards away, but after a while I would just sort of collect them together in one box. Now I'm going through and trying to sort who sent it, and then I'll try to establish some chronology. Letters are pretty easy - they usually have a return address and are postmarked. Cards are a bit trickier, especially if they were hand-delivered. But as I'm going through them a couple of things have dawned on me:
1) I've got a lot of friends
2) I've been pretty bad about staying in touch with them
3) I miss the pre-email days. There's something about physically holding a letter, written by someone, that connects you far better than an email. And there's more personality displayed - the way one person writes in even printed letters, while another writes with the hand of a calligrapher and a third writes in hurried pen-strokes, desperate to write and send it off.
I want to say that I'm going to change - that I'll start calling people up and chat or even send them cards or letters. But I know that won't happen - until work can lighten up, I will have neither the time nor the right attitude to get in touch with anybody. But someday soon, perhaps. So don't be too surprised if you see a card or note come your way - it's time for me to be a better me. And know that, although I might not have personalized it in a blog post scattered to the four corners of the world wide web, I do truly miss you.
