Never Too Late
Every year, I have the same resolution: “I will regularly write friendly letters to distant friends and relatives.” Every year, I forget that there’s a critical codicil to that statement, namely, “…and upon writing the letters, I will stamp, address, and mail them.”
A few years back, I tried sending New Year’s cards to everyone who had remembered not only to write but also to mail us a Christmas card before the holiday had come and gone. But I found that each card began with an excuse, an apology, or a rationalization for my tardiness in sending holiday greetings. “Dear friend: Have a dreary New Year. Love, Laura.” So I scrapped them.
In an effort to improve my timeliness (and also to practice thriftiness!), the next year I purchased Christmas cards during the January sales, then pre-addressed and stamped the envelopes. By the time I remembered having bought them and figured out where I’d put them for safe keeping until December, the postage rate had increased and many friends and relations had moved.
So here we are in the middle of January again, considering whether it wouldn’t be a very nice idea to make sending Valentines our family tradition instead.
But this is the year that both my husband, John, and I will turn 40, and already we have coined a slogan for the year. It begins, “You would think that by the time you turn 40….” and its ending is a variation on a theme, depending on the topic under discussion. For example, you would think that by the time you turn 40…your home would no longer be furnished with stuff from your dorm room. Or…you would have discovered a flattering haircut. Or…you would have come to terms with the matter of Christmas cards. And so on.
It’s sort of a self-critical little slogan, granted, but in the aftermath of the Self Esteem movement, I suspect we can all do with a little constructive self-criticism.
So, since I’m almost 40 and I’ve never routinely mailed Christmas cards on time, nor even complied in any meaningful way with my perennial resolution to regularly write friendly letters to distant friends and relatives, I now conclude that I’m unlikely ever to do so.
However, something I have managed to do before, at this URL, is to regularly post snippets of information about life in Cleveland, Ohio, interwoven with the occasional tidbit about my family’s own experience here. My original motivation in publishing the old “Mama Says” newsletter was both to share discoveries, news and concerns with our community and to keep a durable record for my two children of what growing up in Cleveland at the turn of the century is all about. Although I abandoned the “Mama Says” project a year ago, I notice that the site continues to get a good number of hits. Some of those hits, I expect, are from the very people who are so often in my family’s thoughts, and to whom the aforementioned friendly letters ought to have been mailed.
Assuming that’s the case, I’ve decided to use this site to begin an informal blog. I hope it will be a supplement to, and not a substitute for, writing real letters. But since by the time you turn 40, you should be able to set realistic goals, I’m not going to make any promises.