Love letters.

In my bedroom closet, tucked away on the shelf, I found a mandarin orange box filled with letters from high school. These were old notes written back and forth with friends during classes, letters from friends like Charlene and Shawn who had moved away, and then a whole bunch of love letters. Poetry and proclamations of adoration from Jeremy, Tim and Ryan. I had intended to not even open the box and just chuck it out without revisiting anything. I told Shawn I was going to do this and he said he'd like to have the letters he wrote me. So I ended up having to go through the box anyways and I am glad I did. (Thanks Shawn) It was a trip.

I scanned some of the notes written in classes and had a smile or two over what they said. I also felt some embarrassment over things I had written. I even blushed once or twice sitting alone in my room reading these notes. There were a couple so mortifying that I actually got up and shredded them instantly.

I had about 25 letters from Ryan and I held the first one in my hands for a minute trying to decide whether I would read it or not. I decided not to and I started a 'get rid of' pile with Ryan's letters.

I came across the letters from Tim and read them. They made me feel the most ...I don't know what word I want here. Sad doesn't quite fit, nostalgic maybe, but not entirely. It was just weird. He said such nice things to me and about me but there is a level of detachment that I wouldn't have picked up on consciously back then. I know that I always felt a little unstable with him but I couldn't have pinpointed why. These letters have all the clues in them for why we broke up, I just wasn't seeing them at the time.After reading each letter from Tim, I put them into the 'get rid of' pile. It was hard to do but totally necessary. I figured these were going to be the hardest to get rid of. I was wrong.

Jeremy's letters were my favourite. I only had 4 from him and I kept 3 of them. They are sweet and funny and completely endearing. I laughed when I read them and struggled over keeping them. I finally decided that I had done so well with getting rid of every other letter that I could justify keeping these 3.

By the end of going through the box, along with those 3 letters from Jeremy, I ended up keeping a letter from my Grandma and a funny note from Stef, plus some pictures that had ended up in there.

The bedroom closet project took all day long and while my closet and room look great, I now have a pile of stuff in my hall that I need to take down to the trash, put in recycling or drop off at the Salvation Army.

My typical pattern of behaviour here is to let those boxes and bags sit there for weeks before I do anything with them. I have some level of discomfort about taking things to the Salvation Army and I need to shake that and just do it. It's the reason I like Big Brothers so much; they come to you.