save it for a rainy day

I'm a total dork for arts & crafts stuff. I have been since I was little. I go through phases with it - I'll get really into needlepoint for maybe a month. And then it'll be knitting. And then rubber stamping, and then scrapbooking, and then acrylic painting. It's a form of distraction that I miss. I've been going through decoupaging phases a lot in the last couple years, and during one such phase, I did a thin, plywood archival document box in purple and green tissue with pink and white flower prints on it. It came out pretty decently.

This is where I keep all of my correspondence from the last five years. There's not a whole lot of it, especially from the last year or two. Letter-writing has become a method of communication that requires infinite patience and a certain level of selflessness - it's no longer considered rude not to reply to a handwritten missive, and most people don't take the time to write back, even if they intend to. I've learned not to expect anything from anyone that I write to. It gets discouraging at times, but mostly, I'm okay with it. It's a small way of giving, but an unusually satisfying one. The majority of the letters I've received come from seven people, from very specific points in my life.

I have three or four letters from my one friend who attended the US Naval Academy. During his plebe summer, letters were his only allowed form of communication, and I wrote him frequently. He hates writing of any kind, so the fact that he wrote me back at all was some kind of miracle. Every note from him is filled with gratitude for the fact that I took the time to write him to begin with.

I have maybe a dozen letters and cards total from three of my closest friends from home, which were written throughout college - more from the beginning than from the end. One of them transferred twice and spent a summer away working, so hers come from all over the place. She had very few roots during that time, and I think that writing to me helped her feel more established when she got to her next destination.

I have a number of funny little cards and notes from my mother - she believes in random little acts of kindness, which is where I get it, I guess. I also have a series of letters from my father, who has written to me on "important" birthdays and at different milestones of my life. There is an unfathomable amount of love in these cards, notes, and letters. Sometimes I hardly can believe that they are mine.

Then I have maybe six to eight letters from my best friend, our freshman year of college. I suppose they're love letters. A lot of them are depressing stories about depressing things. A lot of them are encouraging responses to my depressing stories about depressing things. Every time I used to get a letter from him, I'd take it outside to the "amphitheater seating" in the Oak and Maple courtyard, no matter what the weather or time of year, and I'd glory in it - a whole delicious letter, just for me! He always wrote the juiciest and best letters.

When our friendship faded and the letters stopped, it was one of the things I missed the most. For a long time, I kept them in this purple and green box, and didn't touch them. Last winter though, I was having a hard time with myself, and one day I opened the box. And I reread literally every piece of post in it. It was amazing - here laid fresh perspectives of the person I used to be, seven of them.

I always forget this. When you write a letter to someone, you capture your perspective of that person in it, as much as you capture yourself. You give people a piece of themselves, in addition to a piece of yourself. In this sense, letters received are invaluable. They're the kind of thing you save for a rainy day, for the times when you really do need some fresh perspective.

I wish I had that box with me.