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.
