Letter #100 - Angie

100 is such a landmark number.  TV shows celebrate their 100th episode, turning 100 warrants being featured on the local news, we base percentages on 100... 100 is noteworthy.

So is Angie.  I didn't intentionally select a person to be letter #100, but that doesn't make Angie any less important.  I find her fascinating in fact... mostly because Angie is one of those people who I am not necessarily close to, and yet I feel a strong connection to her.  I run into her maybe twice a year at various events, I hear from her now and then on facebook... her number is not in my cell phone and we do not hang out.  We don't particularly interact with each others' lives with any sense of deliberateness, and yet when she crosses my mind, I'm drawn to her personality.

I wrote to Angie because she had shown up a few times recently in my newsfeed on facebook, and I decided she could use a good old fashioned letter.  We've been meaning to connect for a year now on a potential photography project for me, and it just keeps slipping through the cracks.  I wanted to reach out to her in a non-traditional way (isn't it crazy how a letter is actually pretty non-traditional now in the US?) and just say hi.

I hope she enjoys the letter, I hope it makes her feel good and cared about, because even though we may not be close, I find that I care very much about her, and hope all good things for her in her life.

Letter #99 - Kerstin

I often marvel at how relationships work.  They come, they go, they strengthen and weaken... Kerstin is a friend who has ridden those waves in my life.  Our friendship has been stronger at times and weaker at others, yet we still stay connected, albeit indirectly at times.

Current events called Kerstin to mind when news of the shootings in Norway hit my twitter feed.  Kerstin and her family live in Oslo and I immediately prayed for their safety.  I'm happy to report they were unharmed, but it made me wonder about what causes us to drift so much as people, since I hadn't thought much of her in a year or more.  I realised I don't know anything about her family anymore, or even what she is doing for work, if anything.  I don't know what her husband does, I don't know how often they get to see her family in Germany, I don't know how old her kids are... and while I don't necessarily feel guilty for that (she doesn't know much about my life these days either), it urged me to write her and reconnect.

I have no idea if I will hear anything from her or not, I remember Kerstin was always much more of an in-person type, but we'll see.  If nothing else, I know I made an effort to reconnect with someone I consider a friend, no matter how far we may have drifted.

Letter #98 - Barbara

I have had the great blessing of living a life full of strong women to serve as role models and mentors to me.  I've mentioned some of them on this blog before, and today I'm writing about another one.  I recently picked up my notecards and pen again and wrote out a few letters... admittedly I'm not as far along on this project as I would have liked, so I'm going to need to step it up a bit... but I wrote out a few in a moment of sheer loneliness.  Having been unemployed for nearly 2 years, I spent a lot of time at home.  I wrote out a letter to Barbara sharing with her about my life and how much I miss living near her.  I also shared about my job search, which pleasantly came to an end the week after I sent her letter off, so now I'll have to send her a new one to fill her in on my good news!

Barbara recognised the writer in me at a young age.  When I was about 5 or 6 she gave me my first journal.  Little did I know how important that would become to me.  That specific journal may not have had every page filled, but I now own about a dozen other journals that do.  I am not a regular journaler.  In fact I find that I write the most when I am going through difficult times.  Writing seems to be a way for me to focus my thoughts and clear my head.  It's an excellent release for me at times.  In the process of getting married and moving out of my parents home I came across my stack of journals again and began reading through some of them.  It was amazing to me how vividly the events I described in their pages came flooding back to me as I read.

I have recently come to think of myself as a collector of memories.  I collect all kinds of momentos of people, places, events... and a large reason for that is my background.  I moved all the time as a kid and teen, and I think it played into my almost obsessive need to commemorate things.  As I grow older I try to detach myself more from the "stuff" and work on the memories themselves.  Stuff goes away after time, and memories hopefully stay for much longer.  Barbara helped give me a tool to hold onto those memories.

I am grateful for her influence on my life, and for her immensely beautiful smile and spirit.  I treasure her friendship and pray I'll be able to see her again soon!