Reconnecting | My New Year's Resolution to Write More Letters

Happy 2022!

We are fully into winter here now. I have even found myself wanting to make snowflake decorations, but I haven't yet due to the lack of blank white paper in my house. I have been contemplating the idea of finally buying a printer for my home office this year, perhaps it's time to do that and this is the sign.

Being able to print typed things could also help with my new year's resolution. This year, I want to write more letters to my girlfriends that live far away. I've noticed in the past two years that I don't communicate with very many people on an intimate level, mainly just my nuclear family. Sure, I occasionally call my mom, but probably not enough. So the goal of the year is to reach out and reconnect with those I lost closeness with over the past few years.

Some of this loss of closeness is due to distance, but, even more so, it's because of motherhood. Becoming a mom nearly two years ago now (and a stepmom even longer), I lost contact with a lot of my friends from my single days. The girls who were like sisters that spent my early 20s with me had fallen by the wayside unless they too had already reached parenthood.

I grew close with the girls who had infants and toddlers, or step-kids, or even both like me. But in that process (elbow deep in diapers and sore from breastfeeding), I lost touch with the important people who weren't on that part of the journey with me. So I want to reconnect with them, now that I'm over the shock of infant motherhood.

I even lost touch with my maid of honor. The single person I chose to back me up on my wedding day... I haven't actually spoken to her in literal years. She deserves and entire book written to her- "My life since I stopped talking to you" and filled with everything I should have been telling her as it happened. I'd like to get back to that place this year- where I talk to my best friend in Chicago, my big sister in Florida, and my 'blended motherhood is complicated' twin in Detroit.

So to accomplish this feat, I gave it some serious thought. Phone calls (in theory) require less effort, but they do require the timing being right. Especially since half these women are mothers too- with anything from newborn infants up to high school teenagers causing chaos on their end of the calls, just as much as the toddler tantrum on my end.

Video chats are equally risky in the inevitable interruption ruining any deep connection. Phone chats and video chats haven't worked previously- a new approach must be considered.

Quick texts have the lack of humanity problem in that only so much can be conveyed in a brief word blurb shot across the networks, and don't always express the proper emotions.

I finally settled on a solution- and it became my new year's resolution "plan of attack". I'll write physical sent-with-the-post-office letters to my friends. Like writing an email, but also being able to physically hold it. A tangible piece of evidence that I'm reaching out and sharing my life with them even over such distance.

So there you have it- my big goal of 2022 is to write letters and mail them to my friends. Specifically once a month, at least, and telling them all about what I've been up to with my time, how my family is changing and growing, etc. I'm hoping to keep you updated here too. The posts have been sporatic at best in the past few years since I started this blog. It's been an experiment in how I feel about publishing things I write. And I'm still figuring that part out, but you're welcome to follow along as I search.

May 2022 bring you joy and laughter.

Until next time,

EmmaLeigh