be a better correspondent

I’m an adequate correspondent. I’ll continue to be adequate. I’ll reply to e-mails and letters, and I’ll occasionally feel moved to write one spontaneously. I’ll make sure my parents continue to get regular mail from me. And I’ll write thank-you notes and send Christmas cards.

And that’s no less than anyone else does. It’s more than some do, and it’s as much as I can really manage. “Better” is just too vague for this goal. I’m only marking it as “giving up” because I don’t think that I’m any better about this than when I adopted the goal.

C’est la vie.

I’ve been writing to or seeing a number of people I correspond with. I’ve also been having E write to someone different each week and tuck in a note where appropriate. I sent my Christmas cards with notes in the appropriate ones. So, I’m feeling fairly good about this goal. I’d like to write to KS and MR (once it’s not too soon after the Christmas notes), and if I do that and otherwise keep staying in touch with the others, I’ll mark this done.

I write to my mom often, because it is one of the few things I can do for her. And the other day when I was babysitting my nephew and niece at their house, my niece was napping and E and his cousin were playing so nicely that I was bored, so I wrote a nice long letter to Cynthia. But otherwise I’ve been failing at this goal.

At the same time, I am regularly expending time and energy on 43T. I <3 43T so I don't want to stop, but it makes me feel guilty that I do this when I can't even keep my friends and family updated.

So I think it has come to this. I might start blogging. Then I could post something there the same way I post on 43T, and give the link to the people to whom I should be writing letters.

I mentioned this to S and we decided it might be nice to have a family blog. We could help E make posts, then S and I could each post to it as we like. And family and friends could check it periodically and will probably be far more informed about our lives than they are right now.

I never thought I’d have the desire to blog. It’s definitely not something I’d do if I hadn’t found & become addicted to 43T.

I don’t expect blogging to take me away from 43T much, since I probably won’t get the frequent interaction I get here. And I won’t be linking the blog to 43T or vice versa. But I do reserve the right to use my cut-and-paste skills!

one of the hardest letters I’ve ever written. A friend from grade school/junior high/high school recently wrote to tell me her brother had died in an accident. She and I generally write once or twice a year and it had been about a year since I’d heard from her—turns out, she had been dealing with her grief for that long. I delayed a bit in replying, feeling guiltier all the time. Finally, about 2 months later, I gathered up the emotional resources to answer. It’s not just that I had to express my sympathy for the loss of her brother, with whom she was very close, but also that I had to tell her about my mother. I’d referred to her illness, but since it has gotten so bad in the past year, M. had no idea what’s really going on, and I had to bring myself to write it all out.

So this letter was quite wrenching to write. But I finally got it done, and I am proud of it. I think my inability to write it has been stopping me from writing to anyone (except, of course, my notes to my mom), and I think now I can catch up a bit more on correspondence. Even another note to M., since this one just talked about her grief and mine, and wasn’t newsy whatsoever.

I went to school with M. forever. I remember jump rope, sleepover parties, etc. Now we’re dealing with such adult griefs!

Other than the cheery postcards I have been sending my mother, I haven’t produced much correspondence. Now that I have this goal I am hoping to have more time for this.

However, I did get together for dinner with Debbie when we were passing through southern NH, so that kind of negates the need to write her a letter. At least it bumps her way down the list!

I just realized that for the past several weeks, I have been sending my parents an email every few days, and copying my best friend on it. (There’s nothing I would tell my mother that I wouldn’t tell my best friend, and anything I would tell my best friend that I wouldn’t tell my mother can go in a separate email). I am copying my friend, with her permission, because I said “if I am going to write this much, I might as well get some mileage out of it!”

I am also sending them a piece of snail mail almost every week. All this in addition to calls.

I am doing this to try to get them to think about something other than my mother’s failing body. I find myself doing lots of fruitless things because there’s nothing I can do to cure her.

At any rate, it is keeping them (and my best friend) more informed about my day-to-day life than they have been since she (my mom) was still able to type and IM’d me often.

So this certainly counts toward being a good correspondent!

And a nice, long, chatty email it was! Witty at times, too, if I do say so myself. I am proud of myself for this. Next will be a response to Michelle, although that will take some fortitude, as we each have sad news to trade. After that, Debbie and then Cynthia. I hope to get to all of them in the course of this week. So, one down in a no-corners-cut kind of way and 3 to go!

my Christmas card begged her to write and she did. Now the ball’s in my court to answer her. My bad. Got to do it.

and the only way that’s gonna happen is if I write to them too. And it doesn’t actually take too long. I could be doing it instead of this! I am not as bad as some, but I could be better.