I think I’m just starting to realize that 31 letters is a lot of letters. When I decided to do this, I was adapting the idea of writing a letter every day for a year, so in comparison a month sounded like a piece of cake. As it turns out, it’s one of those cakes at the Chocolate Bar which have like ten layers and you can never finish a piece and even if you do you feel kind of ill afterwards. Okay, not quite like that. I haven’t felt ill yet. But this is only Day 7!
Luckily some people responded to my facebook plea for their addresses because otherwise this would have stopped on, like, Day 4. I was happy and a little bit surprised with some people who volunteered their whereabouts since I haven’t talked to some of them in a really long time. This initially made the letter writing kind of awkward; should I try to sum up the past six years of my life somehow? How much do they even know about my life now, gleaned from facebook status updates and random, ninth-hand gossip? Is it as little as I know about theirs? What do they even care about now that I can write about? No idea! But eventually I decided that was okay, and just kind of went with it.
For some reason it’s easier for me to say things in letters than in conversation or email. I guess it’s the time you get to compose your thoughts that you don’t get face to face, plus the time delay in their receiving it which lends a measure of distance too. Not that every letter I’ve written so far has contained dramatic confessions. Or at least true dramatic confessions. Sometimes I get bored and just make up gossip about shared acquaintances, such as when I revealed to Trevor that someone in our O-Week group is an undercover CIA operative. Although I’m not sure that’s made up; it seems pretty obvious. Bet you can’t guess who!
Here is the current letter map, as of today!
Hopefully the first few people I wrote to will be getting their letters today or tomorrow! Just because I promised to write one a day doesn’t mean I actually mail one a day. Sometimes it’s dark and I’m afraid if I walk to the mailbox I’ll literally freeze to death! My greatest regret would be not finishing my New Year’s Resolution. That, and dying.
If you run out of recipients, you can totes send my family some letters. All my brothers have separate mailing addresses this year so you would be able to get three separate letters out of it!