Letter #82 - Alexei

When I was in college I worked in the cafeteria in my dorm for a couple of years.  My first semester I met Alexei, a Russian grad student who was also working in the caf.  Alexei and I hit it off almost instantly, and truth be told I had a big crush on him until we discovered he was 10 years older than me and that was just too big a gap at that life stage.  Age and crush aside, we had SO MUCH FUN working together, he has an awesome sense of humour and we would just laugh and laugh through our entire shift whenever we worked together.  We would also try to get our breaks together so we could keep the conversation going.

Before I even finished my time at school Alex and I lost touch.  When I moved off campus and he stopped working at the caf we drifted and lost track of each other.  Until last month.  I received a message in my inbox on Facebook asking if I was the same Rachel from Case Hall Caf... I was floored.  Here was my crazy Russian again, I was so excited to hear from him!  Alex is back in Russia now and I was glad to hear he is doing well and updates on his life.  I asked for his address (snail mail) so I could make him a part of this project and today's mail is carrying off a letter to Russia with greetings, updates and photos!

I look forward to hearing back from him, whether online or via snail mail, I hope the letter arrives alright, he said Russian mail service can be pretty shady sometimes.  In any case it's been very cool reconnecting with such a cool old friend :o)

Letter #65 - Todd

This letter was written as an attempt to heal something internal.  Todd is a good friend, and I worked with him for 5 years in an amazing work experience that forever changed me.  When I was laid off, I had extremely mixed feelings.  I tend to take things personally, and so it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that me no longer being employed wasn't personal.  I had friends and colleagues who felt my circumstances were unfair, but I understood the situation, and wouldn't believe that I had intentionally been taken advantage of in any way.  I stand by this.  I believe Todd is a good person, and that he does his very best with what he has.  He and I had an excellent relationship, and I miss having him in my life.

Last year, he was able to take a job in a different part of the state so he and his family moved several hours away.  This quickly felt like a nail in the coffin of our friendship to me as I began to feel as though I fell into the "out of sight out of mind" stereotype.  Todd is a people person, but in a very different way than I am.  I know him very well, and again, I struggled with not taking our lack of contact personally.  I decided recently that I needed to simply let go of the struggling pieces I've been hanging on to, and focus on restoring the friendship.  I don't think he feels it has suffered the way I do, but for me, it's important that I work to make it better so that I don't kill it with my own negativity.

The letter I sent him isn't much, it isn't an outpouring of the heart or a begging for attention.  It's simple and includes an object I know he's been looking for, that ended up in my things when we parted ways.  I hope it helps get us back in touch.  I know things will never be like they were, both of our lives are so different now, but I do miss having him around to bounce ideas off of, or to run questions by, or to send that really offbeat photo or joke I come across that most people wouldn't get... we need another pool party... with umbrella drinks.

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)

Letter #57 - Wolfgang

I think I've mentioned before that one of the biggest downsides for me to being unemployed is that I miss people.  Over my five years working with the same group of people, I made some good friends and I miss getting to see them.  Wolfgang is one of those friends.  Wolfgang was in Mexico when I was still working, and I loved getting to go down there (usually once a year) to see all my Mexican peeps, and especially looked forward to seeing Wolfgang.  Last year, Wolfgang moved to South Africa, further reducing my chances of seeing him again anytime soon.

I decided to send Wolfgang a note to tell him how much I miss him, and to send him a wedding photo.  South Africa is one of the places on my top 5 places I want to visit in the world, so who knows, maybe someday I can visit there, and then I can see my buddy Wolfgang :o)

Letter #44 - Mike

I have had a career that allowed me to meet literally thousands of people.  It was awesome.  Some of those people I could run into on the street tomorrow and not realise it, but many I was able to develop great relationships with.  As I've been out of work this past year, many of those relationships have suffered, and that is a great loss to me.  So today I decided there was no reason I couldn't still work on those relationships, even if I'm not currently in the working corporate world with a corporate schedule and blackberry and crazy travel stories to swap with my colleagues.  I can continue to develop some of those relationships outside of the rat race.

This brings me to Mike.  Mike is someone I met as a result of a series of video interviews my former boss did as a part of our leadership program curriculum.  Mike is a CEO and had some really awesome insights on the concept of work-life balance.  I was not able to tag along with my boss on the trip where he interviewed Mike, but I had been the contact person who set it all up, and followed up with Mike several times afterward.  When my boss returned to the office from that interview, he said "wait til you see it, you're gonna love this guy!"  He was right.  I did get to meet Mike finally a little over a year ago (my last project before the layoff) and it was corporate love at first sight :o)  We share a lot of views on work-life balance and on food.  And music.  Basically, he's awesome and I wish I had more reasons to hang out with him.

Writing to Mike was a very cool experience for me, because it allowed me to draw on professional experiences while focusing entirely on the personal relationship.  I reflected on the things I don't know about this guy, and shared some updates with him on my own life.  He is the kind of person whose opinion I value highly.  I hope I'll get to hear back from him at some point.  I doubt he's much of a letter writer, but I'm sure I'll at least get a note on facebook or something.  If his company weren't based in Montana I bet I could get a good shot at getting a job there, they have a really cool setup... but I'm not sure a move to Montana is in the cards for my family at this time.  Who moves to Montana in February anyway ;o)

Letter #20 - Jose

I've been super busy the last few days so I haven't had a chance to post on my letters.  Here's to catching up.

The other day I was reminiscing about Mexico and it made me miss my dear friend Jose... so I sat down and wrote him a note.  Jose is one of those friends who I fell instantly in love with (platonically speaking).  He was one of the executives in my seminars and the more we talked, the more I felt like we had known each other forever.  He's the kind of friend that makes me wonder if there isn't something to the reincarnation idea... it feels like I would have known him in past lives.  We share a lot of life philosophies and world outlooks and anytime one of us was in each others' town there would be delicious food, wonderful conversation, and general awesomeness.

In my old job I could usually count on at least one trip to Mexico a year, and Jose could usually count on at least one Detroit trip a year, meaning we'd usually be able to squeeze in a few days to hang out a year.  Since I lost my job, no more Mexico.  Jose also has moved on, so no more Detroit.  It sucks.

Writing to Jose allowed me to remember all of the awesome times I had traveling to Mexico.  One of my first trips included a private guided tour of the Anthropology Museum and the Tituhacan Pyramids.  Super cool.