Fading quickly

It saddens me to think of how ephemeral relationships can be. Not romances (everyone knows those are fleeting), but solid friendships that I had convinced myself would never fade. It doesn't bother me if a friend of mine forgets my birthday or doesn't call me often enough. In fact, I think the quality of being able to pick up right where you left off despite lack of communication is one of the defining characteristics of a friendship that can stand the test of time. You don't have to talk every week or even every month, but somehow, nothing's changed the next time you hang out. Sure, boys have come and gone, people have moved, jobs have changed... but the warmth and the closeness of the friendship remains. I have been blessed with a handful of these friends in my life, and I thank God for them. But when a friendship becomes distant (in terms of closeness, not miles) and the warmth feels merely cursory, I wonder why I bother trying to breathe life into something that's obviously on its way out for at least some period of time, maybe forever. Follow through...

Tangible soul

I really miss writing letters. There's something beautiful about them. I am more inclined to be sappy poetic when I can feel the pen move across the surface of the paper. I would really like to start writing letters again. Old-fashioned correspondence brings out my flowery writing. It's difficult for me to express myself fully online. For some reason, there is this pressure here to be entertaining and witty and comical. When I write, I feel, instead, a pressure to write something beautiful, something worthy or preservation. I would cry if anyone threw out the letters I so lovingly wrote.

I infuse myself into my letters. My handwriting, though it has morphed over the years, is mine alone. It is not some font I've chosen at random to represent myself. My words, they are pregnant on the page... something I've found difficult to do with words tapped out on a keyboard and transferred to a computer screen. And because it takes time to communicate a message, I take greater care in choosing the proper words to convey whatever it is I want to get across.

The tangibility of it all, the feeling that I am creating something that cannot be duplicated... it's what drew me to journaling in the first place. I am the type of person who owns several journals. Some of them are filled to the very last line of the very last page. Others are incomplete. Still others are totally empty. My brother bought me an incredible sueded leather journal for Christmas one year. I believe it was 5 or 6 years ago. I still haven't been able to bring myself to write the first page of that journal. I want to have something tremendous to say, something earth-shaking and soul-quenching, something worthy of gracing its pristine pages.

I think I'll write in it tonight. I'm feeling inspired.

Would anyone like to be my pen pal? Receiving letters makes me giddy. And as you all can see, I am eager to write, as well. I just ask that you appreciate pseudo-poetics. A real letter should be elevated from the ordinary, everyday experience of e-mail or weblogging. If we are already friends, I invite you to let me know you more deeply than I do now. If we are not only acquaintances, let's abandon pretenses and dive into what could be a most fruitful partnership. Tell me what's on your mind. Let's talk about love and life and all of the things that make us smile. Let's exchange hopes and dreams, fears and failures. Let's grow together. And when we look back, the corners of our lips will turn upwards as our eyes brim with tears for once-forgotten times, for the winding roads we traveled.

Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz wrote:

Life and death, dreaming and wakefulness; stations for the perplexed soul. It traverses them stage by stage, taking signs and hints from things, groping about the sea of darkness, clinging stubbornly to a hope that smilingly and mysteriously renews itself. Traveler, what are you searching for? What emotions rage in your heart? How will you govern your natural impulses and capricious thoughts? Why do you guffaw with laughter like a cavalier? Why do you shed tears like a child?

What stirs your perplexed soul and why?

Follow through...