Take Two

Captain Steven Hiller: What do you say we try that again?
David Levinson: Yes, yes. Yes. Without the “oops”. Thataway.
~ Independence Day (1996)

Dearest cats and kittens,

I had to walk away from this blog for a while, and for that I’m truly, truly sorry. I came into the ring raring to go, then got a one-two punch from life that side-tracked me for months, to the point that I had nary a brain cell to spare for this project.

Well, that just won’t do darlings, will it?

Despite the fact that I felt like I’d hauled off and done nothing again, this turned out to be a good reminder that life goes on whether we want it to or not, and that losing sight of your goals doesn’t mean they’re lost,  just misplaced. Thankfully, I found mine while going through the pages of one of the many notebooks I’ve kept, and have spent most of my spare time in the last few weeks considering what I’d written, and whether or not it was still true for me. Some was, some wasn’t, and some needs tweaking. This blog? Still on that list. So here I am, trying it again – this time without the ‘oops’.

You’ve Got Ephemera

I used to be an advocate of the written word. I loved sending letters and cards and postcards as much as I loved receiving them in the mail, and given the opportunity, would do my best to talk up the joys of putting pen to paper and creating something that might, some day, end up in someone’s trove of treasures.

Then I got busy.

Not world-changing busy or life-altering busy, just mundane, run-of-the-mill, dear god we have to do laundry again and why is there no detergent left? busy.

My stash of stationary languished, my pots of ink got dusty. Some of my prized onion paper started curling at the edges.

It was starting to look dire.

And then I found it. A 2-inch stack of paper, tied in teal ribbon. Love letters. Cards. Post-its. All from my beloved.

Would I have kept them if they’d been emails? Probably not. His handwriting says as much as the words do, some words inked out carefully, some scrawled, others pressed so deeply into the paper I caught myself checking the next page to see if they’d etched through.

I took the time to read them, of course. Laughed a little. Cried a little. Shook my head at my teen-aged self so much I’m shocked I didn’t send myself straight to the chiropractor.

Then I gently and precisely stacked them back up, tied them back in their ribbon, tucked them away in the storage bin I’d found them in, and vowed to step away from the tech and towards the ink.