Shoebox of letters

I'm over at my parents' house tonight taking care of Lance while they get a break (24 hours isn't exactly a GOOD break, but a break nonetheless). Usually when I'm here I get a chance to think or reflect or something like that. I think it's because their cable SUCKS. In other words, fewer distractions. Well, I figured I might be bored here because I wouldn't have Ryan to bug, Lance goes to bed early, and again, my parent's cable SUCKS! So, I tossed Modern Family season 1 in my bag as my boredom-safety-net, but I also grabbed a shoebox that has been sitting in my living room for a few weeks now. You see, I don't really hang onto things too often. Yes, I let junk pile up for SURE, but when I go through things I don't have too hard of a time letting go. I do keep pictures though. The day after Carrisa passed, we busted out a big box of pictures that I hadn't gone through in YEARS. We wanted to find old pictures for the slideshow for her service. Looking through all of our pictures was SO much fun! Well, sad and fun all at once. You know? Anyway, at the bottom of all of the pictures, there was a shoebox. I figured there were more pictures in it. NOPE! OLD LETTERS! Old letters? It just didn't seem like something I would hold on to! But I did. And I'm glad. :)

I didn't really have the energy to go through all of the letters. I knew once I started I would want to pretty much go through all of them. So the box has been sitting in my living room until earlier today. I knew I'd have time on my hands tonight, and thank God for that. After Lance and I ate dinner, Lance went downstairs to play games and watch TV, and I got to have hours alone with my shoebox of letters. For some reason, I thought that going through them would be like, some kind of cry-fest. I don't know why I thought the whole box would be a bunch of lovey-dovey letters from Carrisa or something like that. Instead, it was a big box of humor and memories! I didn't even cry (YET)! I sure laughed a lot, though! The shoebox was almost like a Time Machine. :) I thought I was getting close to finishing up all of the letters but I realized I was probably less than half done when I decided it was time for an "internet break".

The letters are mostly from Carrisa and my cousin Jessica. My two best friends in High School. :) Most of the letters are from high school (and even a few from 8th grade, I think), and most of them were written while someone was bored in class. They were so "every-day". Now-a-days (how old do I sound?!), the "every-day" stuff is just posted on facebook, and the "real" letters people get are usually via email; not handwritten. The letters from the box were glimpses and memories of my best friends' daily lives, their classes, their crushes, their thoughts, their homelife... They are so much fun to read! Besides the hundred-ish letters from Carrisa and Jess, there are some from Jessica (Jackson, then Haaker), a few from old highschool friends, a couple from Adam, one from Teryn, and even a few from Lynae, some from when she spent time living in Missouri. :) I didn't expect any from Nae. I kind of forgot we ever wrote any letters to each other! There's even one randomly from Lance. I even found a few letters from myself that were either journal entries or letters to Carrisa that I never gave to her, and also the letter they had us write Freshman year to our "Senior Self" (they saved them and gave them to us a few days before graduation or something like that).


I'd say almost 70% of the letters were from Carrisa. I'm just so glad I have them! None of them are exceptionally "special" by themselves, but as a whole, they're kind of a treasure. It is fun to look back on our friendship. We were SO SILLY. You don't even know. Or, if you knew us then, maybe you KIND OF know... but still... you don't even KNOW! Haha. First of all, the letters are SO confusing because we had nicknames for everyonnnne and I can't remember who most of them are (SHE would remember every single one!). Also, in highschool it was like a sin to write in regular blue/black ink or something... they were all in light PINK, blue, silver, or purple pretty pens. Or they were in pencil because they were written in math class. And, we kind of made up words, too. (In summary, they were really hard to read!) We were so silly. We had SO much fun together. We were boy-crazy, aparently! Most of her letters were about how bored she was in class, what we were going to do that weekend or at YoungLife, some cute boy (or "fine" back then), how we need a ride here and there because we didn't have our licences yet...

I don't know. I can't explain what it was like looking back. All I know is it made me happy. I will post peices of the letters when I get the chance. (After I space out on facebook for a while, I'm going to try to go and read the rest... it's seriously taking HOURS!) I will scan up bits and pieces or I will type them out. It's fun to see her handwriting though (not to mention the pictures we drew).

I really think hand-written letters (or just LETTERS in general... not facebook updates) are REALLY cool. I wish we all did that still. It didn't matter back then that I was going to see Carrisa the very next hour, or later that night, or that I lived in the same house as Lynae. We wrote to each other anyway. It didn't have to be anything special. There didn't have to be a "reason". It was just about our life & thoughts. It was about asking advice from each other. It was about telling a funny story while we were thinking of it. It was a part of an ongoing conversation, written down so that we could hold on to it, directed especially to one person. So... I'll be checking my mail, guys! :)