Four years ago I had a few accounts open on social media. At the time I offered anyone that was interested a handcrafted letter with no obligation. The idea was that I would send a letter to anyone that wanted one with the hopes that they would find some joy in receiving some random selection of words. If I remember correctly there were a few folks that made requests. To keep things brief, I can tell you that I dropped the ball and never sent one…until today.
Recently, someone reached out and asked where their letter was. Feeling the full weight of having stood them up back in 2016, I obliged and sent the following:
(Their name went here),
We hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. These are interesting times we are currently living in and it’s safe to say that would likely go without saying, but it seems appropriate to reference it anyway because that’s how letters work. Typically, there’s a greeting and then some nonsense about the recipients state of being and then a whole bunch of stuff in the middle that revolves around some kind of story. It’s letter stuff and it’s been the same since forever. This one, however, is probably the same, but there’s a small part of us that wants to believe otherwise.
The middle. This is the substance part. This is the part where we talk about how deserted the highways were today during our drive to and from the great north woods because the roads truly were empty. Not completely empty, but mostly empty because nearly everyone had been told to stay home. Except us. We had essential business to tend to, as we were delivering bikes to children stranded at an abandoned resort with their mother and her fiancé. The trip up and back was not eventful and the visit with the kids was nice, but simultaneously real weird because we don’t really know the fiancé and we definitely don’t know the fiancé’s parents who actually own the property. We went regardless and made the best of it.
And that leads us to choices. Oh the choices we’ve made...
That’s probably enough about choices. It can be a raw subject sometimes and we usually do a great job of covering up the sorrow with stupid jokes and dirty one liners, but the truth is we still suffer in the space that is our solitude and this pandemic seems to have the whole thing flaming up like a bunch of gas rags in a dumpster.
It’s a real party and we’re doing our best to try and keep it fun.
We hope you enjoyed this letter even though it was four years late.
Signed,
Us (At the time I almost exclusively used “we” instead of “I”)