A few boxes over the garage

Mom asked me to go through "a few boxes" (8) of my stuff from junior high and high school while I was back in Maine this weekend. She is packing up the house in anticipation of a move -- a sad thought for me, but an important new start for her.

While she looked ahead, I got to dive into the past. Not surprisingly, it's full of letters from a world without easy e-mail access, when long distance calls still cost something and text messages & IM didn't exist. I have boxes of postcards, birthday cards, notes passed in class and scraps of paper stuffed into envelopes. Scrawled script on legal pad yellow, beautiful monogrammed linen and even sandpaper (a boyfriend who wrote to me during breaks at his construction job) . Some were from people I had met for a few hours (a 14-year-old Canadian that I had apparently met on the beach while I was visiting my grandparents in Florida) and others were from people I still write to today (my dear friend Jessamy, who has been writing me without fail for more than 20 years -- including when we lived less than an hour apart).

Several "High Fidelity" moments: Poetry from the boy who inspired me to go to CMU. Song lyrics from one of many musician loves. About 20 one-page notes from a wrestler who struggled to keep how he felt about me from his family... and mine ... for a year (he made up a new name for each return address). Advice on love, sex and college life to come. Admissions of anger, guilt, fear and longing. There was a short story in every few inches of time.

More than a few made me want to set them aside to try to find their writers. Where were they now, after so much time?Did they have my letters in return ... and what did they say?

So, keep your letters. You may think they are just taking up space today, or you may fear that someone else will read them and not understand who you were when you received them. But if you are lucky enough to have someone write to you, it captures a moment in your life and becomes a part of your personal history. One that you probably weren't even conscious that you were building. But you'll be happy you have them one day, sitting on the basement floor of a packed-up home, surrounded by boxes -- a glass of wine in hand. Trust me on that.