The annual letter

I have a very strictly defined epistolary relationship with myself. Every year, at the beginning of the year, I write a letter to me. After that letter is written, I seal it in an envelope with some note on the front like "to be opened no earlier than Jan. 1, 2011" and put it away. I then find and open and read the letter I wrote to myself the year before.

This tradition used to include the game of finding the letter that I'd written the year before, a thing which happened every year, right in time for the holiday, and without any encouragement on my part. It was the kind of thing that people didn't really believe at parties and would back away from me upon learning. They do that when I talk about my deja vu, as well. Or medieval intellectualism. Or cumin. Actually, well, never mind. It's a bit uncomfortable - faith that your things will be available to you just when you need them. Or want them.

After a while, I started running into my letters all over the place - because I never collected them. I would find them, read them, think a bit about them, and then put them back in the general collection of stuff. During the early part of 2008, while I was beginning to actively remove unwanted baggage from my apartment and life, I decided to put them all in one place - at least for a while.

And then I read them. As it was July when I finally took the time to read them, it was more like a survey course, rather than an exercise in developing any ideas about common themes, or strengths and weaknesses. Until last year. Last year, my parents were out of town, the city was covered in snow, I had just painted my apartment as a gift to myself and so after I'd written my letter for this year, I sat down and read all of the letters that I'd managed to find and collect in my note box. (It should be noted that while I do not have letters for years that I Know I wrote letters for, I do have letters for years that I was convinced had passed with no missive at all. My brain likes to keep its secrets at times. I'm sure it enjoys them.)

Most of the letters are sweet and include thoughtful reminders to be gentle with myself and have faith in myself and love freely and like that. Not the kind of thing I would share with anyone else ever even under the pain of never eating Indian food again. (Dreck is dreck, no matter who writes it or how well-intentioned it is.) But there were these moments that were like gifts of scenery and remembrance tucked into typewritten paragraphs and scrawled lines. At the very beginning of 2009 I wrote myself two letters, folded them into a card and left them like pressed flowers or fabric soaked in amber. Because while one was my standard note addressed to my future self, the other was a rambling treat of colors and images and a story idea and it was that one that fired the thought of what it is that I love to read. It was the kick galvanic I needed to change everything using the smallest units I have at my disposal.

I decided that I would leave myself gifts on a regular basis. That it was my right to leave things that I love tucked away in books and boxes of magazines and file folders of magazine pages.

For several months last year, I did just that. I replaced the game of finding one letter a year with the delicious treat of finding as many notes with stories and images and moments as I can stand to leave. Not all of them are wonderful, and those I take out of the game and keep so that I don't have to find them again, but I don't have to pretend they didn't exist.

Today, I read my letter from last year. Most of it is chatty and kind of uninteresting, until the end. "Darling," I wrote to myself, "I miss your writing, would you do some more of that? Thanks."

Yes, dear. Yes, I will.