The Art of Letter Writing

I know that letter writing is passe. I'm guilty of hopping on the computer and shooting off an email or sending a lengthy text rather than sitting down with thick stationary and writing in my barely readable, left-handed penmanship. But the importance of letter writing returned to me this week with a letter from Grace at college. It was on notebook paper with a pencil drawing of two kitties at the top, drawn by Grace. The words on the paper were the important part though.
Grace mailed a letter because her aunt sent her a birthday check (back in January) and Grace needed to mail it to me so I could deposit it in her bank account. She said she didn't want to simply mail the check "and be all taking you for granted" so she wrote a letter.
"First off, I wanted to thank you for being so awesome," she wrote. Well, she could have stopped there, but she continued to name some times when she thought I was "awesome."
"Even though we talk pretty much every day, I still miss our walks and talks and mochas. I miss you and watching The Amazing Race together."
Me too. I cherish the times when Grace is home. And, although Grace and I talk about this, having it here in front of me means a lot.
After some reminiscing, Grace writes, "I think when I come home, you'll find me different, but in a good way."
Grace was pretty amazing when she left for school, but perhaps the way she has changed is in recognizing how amazing she is.
She ends her letter with "We're so lucky we have each other. You're my mom and best friend. Good combo? I think so."
Yes, this is a letter that I'll tuck into my letter box, along with the ones from my mom when I lived in France and the ones from my brother when I went away to college. Those letters helped cement our adult relationships. I can look back at them now and remember the hard times and the good times we shared. I can see how those letters built the relationships we have today.
I could not have imagined when I cradled that beautiful, bossy little girl in my arms that she'd grow up to be my best friend and a wonderful letter writer

Skin in the Game

My best friend has a rocky marriage. No, it's not the marriage. It's the guy.
Her husband is a narcissist. I firmly suggested she not marry this guy when her first marriage dissolved. But she was on the rebound and knew she was marrying someone who would treat her well. Nine years later, not so much. Truthfully, in the first year he showed his true colors.
I'd like to say that I've been supportive of her marriage, encouraging her to keep trying, but I was saying "Dump the guy" before she reached her first anniversary. That year, growing large with pregnancy, her father dying of cancer, her husband scheduled corrective eye surgery. He couldn't afford it before, but the end of my friend's first marriage came with a settlement that her new husband felt free to spend. As she drove him home from the eye procedure, fighting a sinus infection that seemed to have taken root with the pregnancy, tears leaking from her eyes as she imagined her father fighting for each remaining breath, her husband told her that he had been dreaming of this corrective eye surgery for two years and now she "was ruining it for him."
Dump him, I advised.
She's been to years of marriage counseling with him, now as their son reaches his 8th year. They've had some happy times -- blips of moments that can't be pieced together to form weeks of happiness, much less months. They fight over her kids from the previous marriage who regard him with disdain. They fight over his free spending habits, his bi-monthly massages and $600 ski equipment. His refusal to help pay for her daughter's college so she has to hide the fact that she's covering the tuition costs. She works long hours, makes more money than him, puts the little guy to bed every night, cooks the dinners, goes to the sports events for the older kids. She's doing it all alone. Oh, wait. He does yard work, but lets her know what a drain it is on him.
Her husband is a little OCD. For instance, one day, she went out to the garage to change the bunny cage, washed her hands afterward, and continued with the rest of her day. That night when she made dinner, her husband refused to eat it because she hadn't worn gloves to clean the bunny cage. One of the biggest fights they have is about keeping the house clean, which isn't easy for most people, but even harder for my friend with the three teenagers, the 8-year-old and the unhelpful husband.
A few weeks ago, she told me the saddest story. She was chopping up jalapenos for dinner while her 8-year-old ate a snack in the kitchen. The cutting board tipped, sending the jalapeno pieces onto the floor. The 8-year-old hopped out of his chair and ran for the back door.
"I'll keep Dad outside until you get those picked up," he said. He knew that his father would blow a gasket if he saw the jalapeno pieces on the floor and then later in his dinner, even if my friend washed them and cooked them.
And that's her son's reality. Keep Dad from getting mad. Keep Dad from throwing a hissy fit.
So, my friend is inching her way toward a divorce. She gives ultimatums. She searches the internet for cute puppies she might get when doesn't have a husband any more. And the other day she upped the stakes.
"If I get a divorce, I'll pay for us to fly to France. You find us a place to stay," she said.
"Deal," I replied. Then I told her she might regret giving me skin in the game since I now had something to gain from seeing her divorce.
I texted her yesterday about great prices on flights to Europe, in case she needs incentive to hurry along her divorce.
She tells me, "I'm the only one in the room who has been through an awful divorce. I'm the only one who knows how hard it is."
Which is true.
But I haven't said to her, "You're the only one in the room who is living with a man who treats you with total disregard, who puts you last but expects you to put him first, in front of yourself, in front of your kids."
The trip to France was not the only skin I have in the game. She's my best friend. Every time he treats her badly, it scrapes away at my skin, wearing it raw as I see my best friend worn down into a numb person, moving through life like a race as if the finish line will provide her relief.
My stake in this game is the love of my friend -- and a trip to France.

Updates

To follow up on a couple of blogs from the past few weeks:
Bald Tucker did very well at his swim meet. He missed making states but he dropped a lot of time in his events, including more than three seconds in the 100 butterfly. That's Tucker out in front. He won his heat. I know the times don't mean anything to non-swimmers, but suffice it to say that when I texted his YMCA swim coach the time that he swam, she responded: "Holy Sh**". She has asked him to go to Florida in April to swim at Nationals. Tucker is deciding whether he wants to commit that much time and effort to swimming over the next month. I know he is worn out from the season.
Spencer's last regular season basketball game was Friday. Spence played well and the teams went into overtime. With 20 seconds left, down by two, he was fouled. Spence moved his big high-top shoes to the line. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Swish. Now the team was down by one with another free throw left to go.
Time out.
No, not the opposing team's coach. Our team's coach called time out. He iced his own guy! He iced my son.
The other team's coach will sometimes call time out to make the player think about his free throws and increase the chance he will miss it. The other team's coach didn't have to because our own coach did.
Spencer missed the free throw and we ended up losing the game by three, so the blame didn't rest solely on Spencer.
And, finally, my best friend called again this week. She even commented on my blog post about unions! She said she didn't speak to anyone, even her sisters, last week while she tries to figure out her future. I can understand that. I'm here for her if/when she needs me.

Friend Abyss

How many friends do you have?
I have a lot of friends. Friends I run with, friends who read my blog and whose blogs I read, friends who I sit with at basketball games and friends who meet me at swim meets. I have homeschooling friends and Michigan friends and Tribune friends. I even have long-lost college friends and grad school friends.
But I only have one friend who I can call at anytime to talk to about any topic. I call her when I hear something funny on NPR or when I hear something unbelievable. I call her when I'm frustrated with my husband or my children. I call her when I feel like I want to scratch my eyes out rather than read another English comp essay.
For years, nearly 16 years, she has been my best friend.
We met at a LaLeche League meeting. She had a one-year-old, I had a baby and a two year old. On our first play date, which was more for us than the children, she told me she was pregnant with her second baby.
When I look through pictures at baptisms and birthday parties, she and her kids are there.

When we moved away from Michigan twelve years ago, I bought a telephone plan that allowed me to talk to her everyday.
I strained to hear her as she waded through her divorce. I drove to Michigan and sat in the courtroom, supporting her fight to keep her children full time. Then, later that same year, I drove to Michigan to attend her wedding to a new man.
I suggested that she wait. "If he's a nice guy now, he'll be a nice guy next year..." but she was turning 40 and he wanted children so she married him.
We visited a few times as a family. We continued to talk most days.
Troubles began.
Maybe my job as a friend is to listen to her problems and only give her what she needs. Maybe these past few years I've been pushing too hard to get her to end her marriage to the man who spends her money, yells at her children, and never gets enough of her time or attention.
I know I have output control. Sometimes, I just need to make myself say nothing. But not with my friend. I didn't stop myself.
And that's why this week, my phone has not rung. When I needed to talk, I picked up the phone and stared at it for a few minutes before setting it down. I had no one to call.
Because, although I've been urging her to end this unhealthy relationship, this unhealthy marriage, instead, she ended the friendship with me.
We didn't have a break up call.
We just had silence.

Flag Memories

Last night, Grace asked if I would go to the football game with her. The weather had turned colder, and I'm a wimp. I had planned to stay in and grade papers with half an eye on "Say Yes to the Dress."
Grace was meeting a friend at half time so I only had to commit to the first half of the game. I texted my friend Jane whose son plays on the team. She would be there. I had a feeling Grace wouldn't be my companion for long. We hadn't even walked half way across the front of the stands when Grace scampered off having spotted her friend Haley who she hadn't seen since leaving for college.
I searched for Jane to no avail so tromped up the bleachers to sit beside another Jane.
"One Jane's as good as another," this Jane said to me when I told her who I was searching for.
Grace came back to sit with me right before the band took the field.
Our school has a big band for its size. More than one-fourth of the students in the school are in the band.
The other team's band had flag girls. They had three different flags to use throughout the show, switching, well, I'm not sure why they switched but the gold and burgundy flags looked pretty.

I was a flag girl at my high school. That's how I met my best friend from high school, Tracey.
We're the same height, so we were always opposite each other in our flag lines.
The year I started as a flag girl, we got new aluminum poles. Those poles were so much lighter than the old wooden poles we used.
Before we could use the aluminum poles though, we had to go to band camp. Does anyone remember band camp in August? I don't think I ever felt more miserable, and I was always on my period during band camp, standing in the hot field throughout the day with bees and flies landing on my bare legs. We had to hold positions like the foot to knee and if we slipped we had to run a lap.
The band director would say, "If you didn't hold attention, you need to run. You know who you are. We saw you."
I always felt so guilty that I would run even if no one was around to see me.
At band camp, we used heavy metal poles to practice with. We couldn't risk ruining the new aluminum ones. We also had to create our own flags from white cotton sheets. I can't remember what kind of scene I used to decorate my flag, but here's one thing I do recall, a white cotton sheet on the end of a metal pole gets pretty darn heavy.
Add to that the early morning practice, the field filled with dew, and soon that wet cotton sheet weighed down my arms.
As the week of band camp passed, I grew much stronger.
Cut to the actual show. We practiced with our heavy poles and flags for weeks. In the band show at half time and competitions, we'd switch to aluminum poles and nylon flags.
One of the highlights of the show was when the flag girls in lines opposite each other catapult our flags to our partner. We each end up with the other girl's flag.
Weeks of swinging the metal pole with the heavy cotton flag.. well, you can guess what happened.
I launched my flag pole and it flew over Tracey's head landing on the bright green turf. We had a runner to gather flags or other discarded objects, but she didn't see the flag laying on the field, so Tracey had to mime her flag work through the rest of the show.
Now that I think about it, I'm rather amazed that Tracey is still my best friend from high school.
We're going to have facials together in just a few weeks. She never forgave me for the flying flag incident though.

Snippets of Conversation

The past few days, people in my life have been saying things that make me laugh, or sigh.
We were having breakfast before school the other day. The front page of the newspaper had a big article and photo about single-sex schools. One of my kids read the headline out loud.
"Single-gender Middle Schools."
"I smell sit-com," Tucker said, between mouths of Lucky Charms.
I don't know why it cracked me up. Maybe it was the way he held out the word smell and went up on the "com" part. Sometimes I forget they're these real people with lives and opinions of their own. Maybe it's because I can see him as a grown up in a room pitching or rejecting ideas for television and movies. It's good to start the day laughing anyway.
On Friday night, I was teaching, but I checked my text messages during the break. I got one from my best friend, working desperately to save her (doomed) marriage. She'd gone out to dinner with her husband.
"Another nice meal ruined by a side order of blame," she texted. I love the image of them both looking at the menus and the husband saying, "I'll have the rigatoni and she'll take the blame, sauce on the side please."
As a bonus for me, the blame continued the next morning, and my best friend drove four hours to see me yesterday. We had dinner and margaritas then watched a good movie The Bloom Brothers.She's sleeping in the other room now and I'm looking forward to a nice walk downtown for some coffee.
The thing that made me sigh was a Facebook post from Tucker's girlfriend. She's a fairly mature 13-year-old. Not mature like those girls who dress slutty and wear make up. She's modest and smart, but apparently a romantic. Maybe all 13-year-old girls are.
I was gone all day Friday, I mean all day. I taught from 8-11 a.m., made it to a college visit at noon with Grace and her friends. Got back at 5 and then taught from 6-10 p.m. My boys were, of course, left to run wild. They had the day off school.
Tucker had left my computer onto his Facebook page. I'm not certain if this was posted to his girlfriend's page or if it was a conversation they were having, but she had written, if not a poem, some poetical lines.
The gist was that her hand, her fingers, no the spaces between her fingers, felt empty without his fingers there between them.
Well. Holding hands is a very innocent pasttime. I'm trying to remember the thrill of that first time a boy took my hand and held it. All I get is the memory of sweaty palms and then kisses with a lot of drool involved.
And I worry that soon it may not just be fingers that are longing for contact. Other body parts may feel the need for skin time, and, I just can't think about it.
I've already asked Earl to buy a box of condoms and put it in the boys' bathroom.
I prefer it so much when they make me laugh rather than when they make me sigh.