A trippy walk down memory lane

Swimming through memories can be a little unsettling, almost like self-induced vertigo.

Today I decided to take down the 8 or so boxes my Mom had neatly packed away in the top of my bedroom closet at home. (There are lots of other boxes with childhood toys and keepsakes - but these boxes were school papers and other more recent things.)

I had 4 shoeboxes completely packed with handwritten letters, mostly from 7th grade (when I first moved away from friends and home as I knew it, from Kansas to South Dakota) to college. It's amazing but the switch from handwritten letters to emails as the predominant or default form of communication took place not very long ago at all. Sure, it depends on who you are, how much you use computers, and what area of the country and world you live in, but for me... the switch took place probably around 1998 or 1999. It probably became official in college when I had to email to keep in touch with everyone in my previous life.

Anyway, looking through these letters was fun, surreal, and creepy. Who is the me who wrote those letters? I'm still me, but so changed.

Also, it's amazing how you forget who the people were who kept in touch with you. It shocked me to be confronted with the evidence that certain people wrote letter after letter after letter to me. From Kansas, there was Erin and Ianne and Amanda. From South Dakota, Katryna of course and Keisha and Katrina. From Minnesota well... no one really, but lots of graduation announcements and parties. Hah. From the internet? TONS of online friends who became "real life pen-pals" to me. Ibrahim from the UAE, Amir from Israel, James from Georgia, Joseph from Massachusetts, Mike from Minnesota... the list goes on forever! Ben from DC wrote me until he got engaged - he had very pretty handwriting. Susan also wrote and still does. Oh and how could I forget Meghan, my coolest internet friend who then came to visit me in Minnesota. I had a ridiculously strong correspondence network the summer I was a camp counselor in Pennyslvania - I had my entire freshman floor writing to me. And from each camp I went to or trip I took, it seems I kept in touch with at least one person for months or years afterwards. What a crazy network of people... and each of them has changed me even if I can't remember or see how.

But really more than fun, throwing away all these letters (and salvaging a few things like photos and postcards) was a little depressing. I don't know why. I guess it's that I don't like to have baggage. I like to travel light on this journey. I like to keep moving forward. I could never have decided to read through all those letters, let alone keep them. They found their way to trash bags. It's hard throwing away your history, but harder still, I think, to hang on to it.