Dear Andie,
I know this is sort of strange. It’s not every day that someone you haven’t seen in over a decade asks you to enter into a roughly constructed social experiment. But thank you, for first accepting my Facebook friend request, and now for agreeing to do this letter-exchange thingy-whatever with me. I like your idea to start these exchanges with what happened after we didn’t see each other anymore. We just weren’t friends any more because your parents put you in a new school, and I stayed. It’s just what happens, I think it happens to everyone. Anyway, maybe this is better, to meet you here: I was kind of a brat for most of the years between then and now.
I also really like the idea of having a daily or weekly topic to tackle. You’re right, I don’t know what has happened to you for most of your life, and I’d like to. What should our first topic be? Sometimes these types of questions are trite, but I really would like to know what moments have defined your life and made you who you are. I don’t even know something as simple as what type of music you like (to start that discussion, I’m listening to my Dispatch station on Pandora). Maybe each exchange we could talk about something to do with our lives, like the things we’ve learned or lost since knowing each other, and then we could talk about another outside topic, like college or the future or even learning and loss in general terms. As much as I love talking about myself and as curious as I am about you, I would also really like to hear what you have to say about things that don’t have anything to do with either of us. Sometimes I get so caught up in myself I forget other people even have thoughts, which is something no one should ever, ever be arrogant enough to do. So this time, we’ll talk about what we remember, like you said. In your reply, you can choose what our next topic should be (or I would be happy to chose).
I think this is going to be a really interesting experiment. It’s about psychology, in learning how we’ve grown up, and how we think what has happened to us makes us who we are. It’s about sociology, in how we relate to each other, in our parallel lives we lived to close to each other (in Scottsdale) yet lived so differently. It’s about friendship, seeing how well you can really chose your friends when all you have to bond over is crayon color preference and whether you both like crusts or not. It’s about what we remember and what we block out. I remember playing in the rocks with you during recess, and your long black braid with a bow on the end. I remember thinking your house was nice, and wanting to climb up to the alcoves under the high high ceiling where there were decorative pots. I remember a wash in your backyard. I have this picture of you in my mind in a white shirt tucked into jeans with a white belt (oh, toddler fashion). Why do I remember these things? Who knows. I’m sad to hear that you have had hard things in your life, to make you want to forget some parts of your childhood. I would be honored to hear what you do remember, and of those hard things, if you are willing to tell me. The big hard awkward thing is that I don’t know you, and I want to. And this isn’t exactly the usual way.
I think I’ll end this introduction and memory-spelunking here for now, to not take up too much of your time. Remembering concrete details of preschool was harder than I thought it would be – everything there is hazy and unsure. Thank you again for doing this with me. I hope you enjoy thinking about old memories and pondering your own psychology as much as I have. I am really looking forward to hearing what topic you’ve come up with for our general topic. But since you had the idea of talking about what we remember of each other, can I choose our next personal question? In our slow process of knowing, why don’t we talk about what about ourselves is the same? How much of you, do you think, is the same as when you were little? Do you like it, or don’t you? If nothing’s the same, why? What does that say?
Thank you, my maybe-friend. I am honestly, humbly, gratefully excited to hear from you.
Hat-tippingly yours,
Anna
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