Last night as I was sitting on the floor in the alcove to our bedroom sorting through paperwork that has been too long neglected in a growing pile by the filing cabinet, I came across a binder of Gareth's that once upon a time had been a crisp white plastic with shiny silver metal binder rings. Years have yellowed the white underneath the clear plastic cover which is cracking in places, and the binder rings have become rusty in small spots. Inside the binder were several plastic sheet protectors filled with various pieces of paper or other small mementos that he's hung onto for decades. I was about to set it aside when I noticed a very aged piece of paper with handwriting that looked oddly familiar.
The piece of paper had been taped together in several places and looked like it had been unfolded and refolded a million times over in the past three decades. In the upper right hand corner of the paper was the handwritten date, "October 13, 1980, Monday."
I was looking at the very first letter I had ever written to Gareth, as a girl of 11. The handwriting alone belies fanciful girlhood dreams, with chubby round loops that were entirely too squished together. It's a miracle he was ever able to read that very first missive and wrote back to me. It wasn't too long after that, that I began writing in block printing...a fact I imagine Gareth, as well as my other pen-pals back then, were grateful for.
I'm feeling very nostalgic and thought I'd share the letter with you. I've scanned it in, so that I have a permanent copy of it, always. If anyone out there knows anything about preserving paper, I'd love your ideas or suggestions. This is definitely something we want to hang onto and give to Gaby one of these days.
I never would have imagined, sitting there writing that very first letter 29 years ago as I listened to the soundtrack from Staying Alive, I would one day end up marrying this boy in Great Britain. In my wildest dreams I never would have imagined - as my mother helped me prepare for my wedding, that I was getting ready to walk down the aisle into the arms of the most wonderful man to ever grace both sides of the Atlantic ocean.
Some of the posts in the series will be taken directly from the many journals I've kept over the years (but I'll spare you my handwriting as I've spent a great deal of the last 5 years transposing those journals onto CD), or from the actual letters we wrote back and forth. I hope you enjoy the glimpse back into our lives.
The series begins this Friday!
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