Letters

"It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life."

-Norwegian Wood, Murakami

The idea of letters is so romantic. I finished reading a fanfiction yesterday about this couple who get together by getting to know each other through letters, and after one of them dies, the other one is left with drawers and drawers of love letters that the now-dead partner left for him. Then there are movies like P.S. I Love You (yes, I'm aware it was a book first) that made me bawl all over my Economics notes (why I thought making notes for Economics was a good idea while watching that movie is still a mystery to me.)

But anyway, letters. Letters are personalised ways of expressing what you feel. Hallmark cards are supposed to do that as well, but letters are like shoes for your emotions. If you don't have the right one, it's always slightly uncomfortable (which is why Hallmark cards feel so awkward.) I wonder if this was the reason why Angela Vicario wrote to Bayardo San Roman for seventeen years: she couldn't write something that fit (Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Do yourselves a favour and read it, please.) Is it even possible to write something that fits exactly right? Most of us actually live with shoe-bites and carry band-aids around. 

If the answer is no, then letter-writing is wrongly assumed as cathartoc. Every time you write a letter, you feel like it is not enough: you could have said it better, added a metaphor or two that might have come slightly closer to expressing what you feel. But I ask this of people who write letters: does writing a letter really give you a sense of closure, as if you've expunged whatever you felt onto paper and don't have to deal with those emotions anymore? I don't think it does. Small bits still stick to your soul; they wrap themselves around you and regrow.

I find letter writing extremely difficult. The other half of this dynamic duo demands letters for her birthdays. I oblige, of course, but it's not easy. Some of it is because I'm immensely repressed and the though of expressing meaningful emotion onto paper for someone else to read is terrifying (which is really funny considering I blog for funsies.) Some of it is because of my woeful vocabulary; I just don't have the words.

Really, I have no idea how people do it. To bare yourself like you do onto paper requires a kind of courage that I do not posses. I feel very strongly for people, and am constantly worried that I'll creep them out if I express what I feel about them in letters (I hope I haven't creeped people out already .-.).

But yeah, if someone asks me to write a letter to them, I'd probably end up not expressing myself fully. In fact, these words by Aaron Smith ("Secrets of an Identity Thief") would probably best express my feelings towards letter-writing:

"[...] Everything that's asked of you is too much.

Say, Too much. Say, I used to. Say, I never wanted this."