Week 9- FINISHED

No. I didn't forget about you. I didn't forget about the blog. Actually, it's been on my mind all week.

I did it. I sat down and wrote letters to people. I took the time with a paper and pen and put the words down.

At first, it was really hard. Considering the things I read and the things I'm capable of, my letter-writing was (and still is) surprisingly immature.  What do I mean? This:

Dear (name):
Hi! How are you? I'm fine. How have things been going.....
(blah blah blah blah blah)

Take care,
KiteGirl

It was kind of sad, actually. I speak 3.5 languages (Spanish is the .5, it would take me some time to get back into that). I read psychology textbooks for fun. I enjoy crosswords, Sudoku, Scrabble, Mahjong and several other "intellectual"-type pursuits. But my letter writing would never reflect that...

I chose only 7 letters to send. I wrote several more, but voted against them. I picked people from my past and my present. There were a few obvious choices, and a few not so obvious ones.  I have to say, I was also surprised by the letters themselves.  Re-reading them, you would almost think that a different person wrote each one. The mood and language and style are just so....different. They are all painfully immature, but each in their own way.


Letters are conversations. Whether or not they are ongoing or two-way conversations is up to the sender and receiver. With that said, I asked questions that I actually wanted answered. I tried to avoid just rambling and "newslettering".

Among the letters that weren't sent, there was one that stood out. It was a letter to myself. You see, on Sunday, I damn near had a complete and total meltdown in a coffee shop. I couldn't do it. After months of studying and cramming and memorizing and drilling and blah blah blah I just hit a point where I was DONE. There was almost some eyewater, it was so bad. After staring at the same concept for 10 minutes and having nothing make sense, I was ready to call it quits and say 'screw this test' and go get friendly with my well-stocked liquor shelf. But I didn't. I picked up the pen and just started writing. It was a scathing letter or reproach, at least it started out that way.
"How dare you" "pansy" "#*$@*!" "Grow a pair"  "suck it up"...Yeah, those were the nicer things in the start. But as I continued writing, the tone changed completely. "Don't quit" "I know it's hard, but..." "it's okay" "you can do it". So it really was a conversation, with myself. Sounds nutso, but it is what it is.

On a much less aggressive level, the same thing happened in the letters I wrote to others. Particularly two of them. They began very cut-and-dry. "Hi. I hope you're well. I'm okay..." But later on it got more sincere.  "I miss this." "do you remember that?" It brought back all kinds of things that I hadn't thought of.

So, I suppose in a way, that letter-writing is healing. (If that's the right word). Writing about one good memory gave rise to another and another then another. I could have written pages, but I figured that I should only subject people to small doses of my barely-legible handwriting at a time (seriously, I must be a genius, because my handwriting is crap! hahaha)

I think I might hold on to this one for a while. If for no other reason than that I bought a pad of letter-writing paper and might as well use it for the intended purpose.