Tuesday, September 22, 2009

This Isn't The Life

How do vagrants do it? How do they live without having anything? How can they go from place to place without settling? How can they talk to everyone and yet know no one? I couldn't do it. I can't do it. Without a stable base, I can't even talk to new people. I move between the lives in these halls, careful not to intersect (or perhaps unable to).

I guess I'm tired of getting to know someone one semester, dropping them on Facebook, and then never hearing from them again. Not that I make any effort myself to stay in touch; what is there to stay in touch about? How's life? How's school? How's being married? They're all superficial things. It makes me wonder how sending letters used to work. What do you ask people? What do you tell them? Can you ever really get into the issues? Maybe discussions that would take us minutes took people months. It's a scary thought.

Maybe that's why we all like getting mail. Not bills, or flyers, or emails, but real honest mail, handwritten and addressed to you. It seems to mean more, though I don't know what I would ever write. Maybe nowadays mail is reserved for the things we have to say but have a hard time bringing up or talking about at all.

I guess the problem with letters now is that you only get one shot, and you'll most likely be getting a digital response soon after.

1 comment:

  1. did JennJ get married? is this what i'm getting out of this? it'd be a shame

    ReplyDelete