recycled letters

I’ve been writing a lot of letters lately. I don’t know what it is about them—the hand-scripted kind—but I both delight in them and feel such weight in them that it’s like getting up from a long and quite personal conversation when I let one out into the world. Problem is, I keep starting letters to people that I’m not sure I’ll ever mail—or ever finish. I have friends that I’d love to write letters to, but there is such fearfulness in me sometimes about sending off words to people that I’m not sure will cherish them in the ways that I have intended for the words. Or that the sincerity I intended in the words may not be received. I hope that made sense. My hands, at the moment feel tired. Heavy.

[And now I think about the term “heavy-handed,” which I think connotes deception. I've always hated the term--ever since one of my GSI *almost* professors wrote it on one of my papers and I had no idea what it meant… just that it wasn’t good, and that I hated when people used metaphorical language that was clear to a lot of people but not to everyone, and which actually befuddled a lot of people who weren’t in the know. Maybe I just didn’t feel like I could heed the criticism when I didn’t know what the matter was in the first place. Enough about that.]

And those letters that I start and never return to or never recopy and don’t end up mailing… they pile up—in my head, as well as in the pages I keep. And with all of the letters I wrote to M. while I was in Germany, she left them for me on the kitchen table. I don’t know what is worse—knowing that I still have the words, or knowing that the words have been rejected and returned to me. And I’m sick of feeling sorry for myself; but I want to write her again… and I want to write her family, because didn’t I love them? And are they angry with me?

I think there are people that are waiting—still waiting—for me to reply to them. Maybe I already have—in my heart—but that never translates, see? At times it seems I am irresponsible with responses. And I don’t want to be.

Am I echoing an old post here? One from the winter or further back? Am I recycling these thoughts?

*Still, I must remember--that words are gifts that God has given us. And who am I to be selfish with what does not even belong to me? I am still caught up on the ways of the world; but because God gives freely and lovingly, so should I treat what he has given me to those whom he has placed in my life! It's another day of learning.