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!