notes

I got the mail the other day and there was an envelope in it addressed to me - in my cute little husband's handwriting. I was so surprised! Even though it was my birthday week and Valentine's, it was still a little thrill to recognize the handwriting on an envelope in my mailbox. I have to admit, I kind of figured he was mailing me a receipt or form from work or something, but in it was the cutest little note from my hon. YY

It also made me kind of nostalgic! It made me think of those days when notes were the way we all communicated with our friends. Before texts and e-mails and facebook posts... there were actual handwritten NOTES. They somehow seem more personal, you know? You folded your note in the shape of a football and boldly chucked it at your BFF three seats over when the teacher turned her back, and God forbid you didn't know how to fold it like a football. You scribbled illegible conversations back and forth on the back of a gum wrapper in Social Studies, discreetly pushing the paper back in forth, excitedly waiting to see what he might say next -- TLA and TLF and U+ME and LYLAS -- now replaced by the digital LOL and WTF and BTW. Remember folding notes in perfect squares, it had to be done just right so the paper tucked neatly inside itself in the end? Remember those notes with the little boxes where you'd check yes or no, or maybe? Getting a note passed to you between jostling bodies in a busy hall made your heart skip a beat... does he like me? is there a party? what did she say?

I have an overflowing box full of notes, and not just a shoe box either -- one of those big MOVING type of boxes. Notes and letters from the 80's, when I was just a teenager. I have no idea why I saved them... I only know I get nervous when it comes to throwing away such solid reminders. It helps me preserve memories, it brings me back to important times, moments, friendships, loves. There were fights and breakups, relationships and friendships made and broken, gossip and betrayal, silliness, stories, and invitations - all through the handwritten note. I have years worth of history on torn pieces of loose leaf paper, just sitting there in a big box in the basement. Waiting for what? I do not know...

Notes are tangible, touchable things, things that cannot be deleted when your inbox gets too full. Maybe that's why I hang on to them. Maybe I will go down there one of these days and weed through the mini mountains of paper. Maybe they would be best left unread...