In my last post, I mentioned that I had begun sorting through all the letters I received as a young adult, or at least all those I had saved. It took me a number of hours, but I finished the task yesterday.
Impressions?
First, I was extremely fortunate to have had such friendships during those years. There were times of my young adulthood that I didn't recognize my blessings in that area, dark times when I imagined that there was no point in continuing, mad, crazy times when I engaged in all sorts of foolish, dangerous activities that are not uncommon among the young who feel they are indestructible, and confusing times when I experienced both love and hatred, realized the depths of joy and evil that people are capable of, wondered about the "point" of it all, questioned, moved two steps forward, one step back.
Growing pains, some might say, but seemingly a bit more intense than most of my friends, if their letters, and my journals (of which I believe I have found all but one), can be believed.
Second, the bulk of the letters I have are from young ladies, which means that I sent most of my letters to members of the opposite sex. Perhaps this is not all that unique in itself, corresponding with women that I "thought" about, but the bulk of those letters were from girls with whom I never had a romantic encounter.
That doesn't mean that there aren't letters from my male friends. Quite a few actually. And there certainly were some in which real emotions, real feelings and fears were expressed. But nothing like those I received from my women correspondents. While there was certainly the occasional letter from a young lady who expressed little more than an obligation to answer a letter received from me, the vast amount of those letters expressed real joy, surprise, and appreciation that I wrote them, especially from those who were away at college. It was as if in that brief note, I represented all the memories and roots and comfort that "home" represented for them as they navigated their first experience on their own.
In other words, they valued my friendship, and the fact that I took the time to let them know they were in my thoughts. I think that there may be something to the fact that we just don't do that as much as we should these days, just check in on our family and friends, for no particular reason.
Of course, it may have helped that I would recount just about anything in my letters to them. Without realizing it, perhaps my expressed vulnerability in those letters enabled them to be vulnerable in their responses.
I am fortunate to still be in touch with some of those letter writers, although, sadly, one of them, whom I would have been motivated to reconnect with after reading her letters, has passed from this plane. That is a regret that I will have to live with, to know that I touched something in her, but was not fully aware of it, did not give our friendship (or perhaps relationship) the attention, or chance, it deserved.
Of course, I don't have access to what I wrote her, I don't have a clue as to how many of my letters still exist in the world, and I am certainly profoundly content with the woman I married, with the children we raised, with the life we had and will continue to share. If there is a heaven, and I am sure she is there, perhaps we will have our time to talk some more, to sort out what was real and what was just young people staying in touch.
As for my idea of starting to write letters anew, I am on board with the plan. I printed out a few copies of my original "Lots of Letters" post, one of which I will include with the first correspondence I send, in hopes that some of those recipients will accept my challenge to write letters again. I have started a "letter log" so that I can keep track of who I communicate with, in hopes of contacting everyone from whom I have an old letter, in the next year or so.
That might be a challenge, as I don't have addresses for most of them, and a few I haven't communicated with in over 40 years, but it is amazing what you can find on the internet with the correct, specific, keywords. The good news though, is that the first bunch of people I contact are still good friends which won't take any effort in terms of addressing their letters.
I am hoping to send each of them one of their letters to me, which may or may not be wise. It seems that many people wax nostalgic about the good old days, but do so with rose colored glasses. Some prefer not to think of how young and naive they may have been, or how down right careless they may have acted. For better or worse, I do not water down my recollected memories when I recount them, the good, the bad and the ugly. Sure, I prefer the fun time stories, but do not suppress the times when I was cruel to my parents with my extreme thoughtfulness (I have apologized to my mom a number of times since my dad passed many years ago, but not to him, which is another of those regrets), or selfish (as most young people are), or even self destructive, considering all the drugs and risky behavior I engaged in.
I prefer to think that all of it, all those memories, all those times when I was good and bad, are what makes me who I am now. It is the accumulation of it all, and to pretend certain things didn't happen to maintain some kind of responsible "adult" standing now that we are well into our mature years, seems hypocritical. Although, I also know some people who beat themselves up, to this day, over all their youthful mistakes. I guess between those two choices, pretending they never happened or angst and anxiety, the former might be a better defense.
Somewhat unrelated to all this talk of letter writing and memories, I saw that a few people accessed a post I wrote in 2018 called Intellectual Leprosy. It was about Simone Weil, whom I had just read about, and with whom I was not familiar up until then. The term, intellectual leprosy was hers, not mine, and it describes a thinking process, or perhaps lack of thinking process is more apt, that exists in many of our institutions, none more so than within our political parties. Strangely, without remembering that post about Simone, I had a similar conversation with someone yesterday about the aspect of religious teaching that can sometimes cause such intellectual leprosy when it comes to following dogma and man-made rules which seem to conflict with the spirit of the religion and its founders' teachings. A lack of questioning authority was never one of my faults so it is sometimes difficult for me to discuss important topics with people who are all in on the words from their leader, none so much as those who hang on every word of the current occupant of the White House.
After reading the post this morning, and her theory, it is striking how her worst fears are being realized, and illustrated, everyday in our news cycles. Here is a link to my post, but more importantly, you might be better enlightened if you read something she wrote instead.
https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2018/11/intellectual-leprosy.html
Finally, this will be my 700th post. I am experiencing a massive up tick in "hits", a pattern which started at the beginning of last year, 2025. I rarely receive any comments on my blog, so I don't have a strong understanding of why so much traffic. Perhaps it is as simple as continuing to do something for a long period of time. To add one final regret to the two I have listed, this increase in interest in my writing reminds me of my biggest regret, not pursuing a writing career right from the start. Oh well. I guess I don't mind the label late bloomer all that much.
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