Letter #83 - Ginger

I have lived with a lot of people.  Mostly because the last few years of undergrad I was living in a house that was home to 12 students... many of which were different each year I was there.  Ginger was one of my roommates at the house and I absolutely loved her.  Ginger is everything a redhead named Ginger should be... fiery, independent, strong willed, passionate, and a touch crazy.  We made great roommates and she got me hooked on the wonderful world of Joss Whedon.  Ginger and I share a dark sense of humour, and she not only brought it out in me, but helped me realise it was ok to let that part of my personality out.  We don't keep in very regular contact, but we have the kind of relationship where that's ok, and when we *are* in touch it's like we still live together almost.

I wanted to write to Ginger because I have been thinking about her a lot this week, and reflecting on the impact she had on my life as a friend and as a roommate.  I wanted to verbalise some things to her that I never had before, and thank her for being so awesome.  She lives in another state now, and we've both gotten married since the last time we saw each other... I really hope at some point we can get together with our spouses and hang out and catch up again, but for now I'll make do with my letter and sending her a whole lot of love.  I hope my letter brings a smile to her face, and let's her reminisce for a bit about our shenanigans together when we were roommies :o)

Letter #59 - Erica

Sometimes I feel like a bad friend.  I get so wrapped up in my own stuff, or in the lives of a couple of specific individuals, and I neglect other friendships.  I don't mean to, and I often still think about those people, but I get bad at calling, or inviting to coffee or dinner or lunch... and sometimes it happens more because we try several times to make something happen and schedules get in the way, so I eventually kind of stop trying until "things settle".  Erica is one of those people I feel as though I've been neglecting lately.  I was feeling bad about it, so I sent her a letter this week.  I'll admit, it's not the most insightful and incredible letter ever written... it's mostly an invitation to set up a work day like we used to (we both worked from home and fell victim to the trappings thereof at times, so we would support each other by meeting in a central, less distracting location, and work on our own projects while keeping each other company.  It was nice.)

It was also an invitation to have her and her husband over sometime to hang out, since we haven't successfully done so since we got married.  Part of the excitement for us of getting married and getting our own place was finally having somewhere to have OUR friends over.  We both lived at home with our folks, which was great, but if you wanted to just have a couple's night and invited friends to dinner or something, it got kind of weird "hey wanna come hang out at my parents house with me and my fiance? they'll stay upstairs..."  We're rounding the bend on 6 months of marriage and haven't had nearly as many of our friends over yet as we would like.  No solid reason, it just hasn't happened yet.  I'm hoping that some of these invitations I'm extending with this project will start to change some of that, because we really love to entertain :o)