February 8th, 2010

Memory Lane Monday: Love Letters

Last week I officially made my peace with working from the main floor of my home instead of my pretty but cold and isolated basement office. I bought a new desk for the main floor (small enough to fit into a corner, on casters so I can sit where my mood indicates). Since I was at Ikea anyway….yeah, I bought more stuff! I bought a number of storage containers and boxes to set up my basement office a little better. Despite not actually sitting down there often it is a practical space for storing things and keeping my main area less cluttered. I also bought (and assembled myself!!!) a storage shelf to hold some of the containers.

It wasn’t until the past weekend that I spent some time sorting through all the piles of stuff to reorganize properly into containers. I put some business books on the shelf, moved some tax papers out of a plastic bin and into a proper file box. Then I took on the biggest, and most emotionally challenging task. I had four small metal containers that were dented and musty-they held my memories from junior high and into my early twenties. There are some birthday cards, class pictures, report cards and lots and lots of letters.

When I was in school we didn’t have email – we actually often wrote letters to one another! I have letters from friends, notes from co-workers and more love letters than I had realized. Love letters from boys I barely remember and love letters from the man who is now my husband. Love letters that make me smile and love letters that make me hurt to re-read.

I have sifted through those letters every time I have moved, every time I go through an organizing phase and occasionally just because I feel sentimental. It’s weird to go back to that time, which mostly encapsulates my high school years. I’ve always remembered that girl, the me who was thin and blonde and so unsure of herself, as having been a mostly good person. Maybe she was a little opinionated, but she loved her friends and worked mostly hard at school. But reading those letters today, with more life experience than ever before, I’m not so sure I like her that much. She was lonely and restless, unhappy and lacking something, I don’t know what. Maybe just time to grow up.

I read letters from more than one boy from the same summer. One where a boy proclaimed his desperate love for her, dated at a time when I know she was on vacation and meeting another boy. The next summer there were two boys again, and I think she ended up hurting them both. What was she thinking?

And even now, here I am trying to distance myself from her, even though she is me. And I’m not sure if I’ve grown up as much as I’d like to believe. I still tend towards selfishness. I still spend time dreaming too much about what could have been instead of looking to the future, or just too much time dreaming instead of doing.

I also realized I don’t write enough letters these days – life has been reduced to short emails or text messages, skype and phone calls, instead of long, thoughtful, meaningful letters than someone can cherish. My mom lives in another country, my husband works often away, my grandmother would be so grateful for a cheerful card with a few words in it. Time to add back in that kind of writing in my life, instead of just pouring my heart out online.

Oh something else I found in my box of memories, piles of poems that had meaning to me, and this one especially touched me Saturday, and I wanted to share it here. In some ways, it’s seems like a love letter to oneself, a reminder of who you can be if you learn from experience:

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today,
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.
And you learn and learn…
With every goodbye you learn.

Author: Veronica A. Shoffstall

(hat tip to Momalom and their post on love letters, it helped inspire me to post this today, even though I didn’t quite do the challenge they suggested, I still credit them with the creative nudge!)