The dresser in my bedroom that holds new pencils and Christmas boxes, stamps, glue guns, outgrown t-shirts, old buttons...it's a catch-all place and it drives me nuts.
Not anymore! It's all tidy, along with the closet under the stairs, that cupboard above the washing machine, the space under our coffee corner and other spaces that get set aside in favor of the urgent and necessities.
This tidiness was not limited to MY forgotten corners; no, it generously went to the girls closets. I went through their clothes, swapping out winter for summer and noting items that needed mending or were too worn out to stay. During this purge, I came across a sunflower chest in Beanie's room. I hadn't seen this chest in AGES. It was a gift for my sixteenth birthday and I kept old letters and pictures and mementos inside. I opened the lid, smelling the cedar lining, and was shocked at the amount of letters I kept.
There were letters from that boy in high school- the one with the amazing hair and dreamy voice who I met at the roller skating rink. I even had the mixed tape he made me. Oh, yes.
Mixed. Tape.
He even talks on the tape in his dreamy voice about how special I am and how much fun we have together and why he chose each song.
He was downright swooney to me. (Is that even a word?!) I couldn't think straight around him and was all kinds of gooey when I was with him. I thought he was the cutest, most interesting boy in the whole, wide world.
Until he told me HE didn't believe in Valentine's Day, but since I did he would give me a bear his brother's ex-girlfriend had given HIS BROTHER on Valentine's Day.
Suddenly he wasn't so interesting.
There are letters from that guy I seemed to date over and over and over again. He was such a good friend and I laughed remembering that time our car broke down and we hitched a ride with a trucker. We had spent the day in Moses Lake with my Nana playing pinochle and my car died going up the hill outside of Vantage. We sat in the car and argued about which direction we should walk to get to a town (these are the days before cell phones) and we argued until the sun was almost down and walking was no longer a great option. We got out and started walking anyway. That's when the trucker pulled over and offered us a ride. I was convinced he would murder us, but was talked into it anyway. He deposited us safely in Ellensburg, where we were able to call my dad.
I'm glad we survived.
Here is the card from that boy in college, the one I was convinced I would marry. I found that card in my college mailbox after our second date. He got me to my dorm after curfew and, at my college, if you got in after curfew you had to pay money. He had put money in the card to cover my "late charge" and a promise to get me home on time in the future. I really thought he was "The One". He was the first person I told that my parents were having serious problems.
He broke up with me saying God told him to and maybe we would get back together later.
How do you argue with God?
Next are the letters from Logan. He was my cowboy friend and I loved him like a brother. So many letters from Logan. He spent a summer watching sheep somewhere in the middle of the United States and he wrote to me a LOT while he was out there. He talks about his mom (I have letters from her in here, too!) and the stars and the fields and wide open spaces and sends me quotes about how "the little woman on his arm was made of powerful stuff." His letters are full of love and encouragement; they are a delight to revisit.
Here is a letter from Mindy, a girl who noticed my kindness and just wanted me to know.
A Valentine's card from another college boyfriend states that I have redeemed his faith in the female gender. And here is the letter where he says he doesn't want to grow old and alone with sixteen cats to keep him company. He wants to know when I'm coming to Colorado.
Poems from the boy I danced under the stars in the orchard with.
He was a really good writer.
Some funny cards from friends and one from my mom congratulating me on my new apartment.
Stacks of cards and letters written by me to my husband and stacks of cards and letters from my husband to me.
Back when we were dating.
I haven't had a card from him in forever. He wrote sweet words.
And we knew nothing.
About each other, love, being grown up, building a life together, any of it.
We were very sweet and very stupid.
My journal from those years is tucked in here. I cringe reading my thoughts on love and these boys. I wanted them to love me and I wanted to love them well. I'm sorry for the ways I hurt them and can only plead ignorance. I also want to know why they hurt me.
Probably the same reason.
Here is the Christmas card written seven months after my mom moved out. It's full of determination and courage and fight- maybe I shouldn't have spent so much energy fighting. Maybe I should have written in the Christmas card what I wrote in my journals. I wasn't okay. I felt like I was hurtling through the air and nothing would catch me. Ever.
I would never have a place to land.
I threw away the cards from that season a long time ago. It was just too hard to keep them. Scott has the ones written by me from that time. They seem Pollyanna-ish, but I wasn't being fake; I was surviving.
I have reached the bottom of the chest. Surrounding me are piles of paper, some old pictures and a plaque declaring me the "Best Bus Socializer".
This is my written history from those years in voices other than my own. As I read them I feel a little sad about e-mail and text. I still remember how each one of my friends (especially boyfriends) wrote my name. On the outside of a note, on the envelope for a card...it was special. You don't get that with electronics. Will my daughters get letters and cards to save and stumble over twenty years later? Or will it all be stored in some "cloud"?
That seems a bit impersonal and definitely not as romantic.
I'm here with a small plea:
Teach your kids to write letters.
Maybe some notes.
Grab them a journal so they can experience the power of a written word- not typed, but written.
YOU write them letters! Write them notes!
Show them how special it is to receive a compliment they can save for a rainy day; something to pull out and remind them they matter and that season mattered.
Teach your kids so they can write letters to mine.
