Countdown meme: day 1

[liv]

I've been enjoying lots of people's answers to the 10 things in 10 days meme. I wasn't going to fill it in because the first item is "Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now," which doesn't appeal to me much. I mean, I often find it passive-aggressive, and I generally take the attitude that if I want to say something to someone, I'll just come right out and say it. But then it occurred to me that I owe way too many emails. There are lots of people I want to say thousands of words worth of stuff to, but I don't say it because of not getting round to it, not because I'm too embarrassed. So I'll try and see if I can summarize in a few lines.

1. Dear M,
   My greatest regret about letting my ongoing correspondence overwhelm me is being less regularly in touch with you. I don't even comment on your journal much, cos I feel guilty about writing brief comments when I "should" be emailing you.
   
   Anyway, I hope your current relationship works out well for you. I know you're facing lots of obstacles, and I know I get impatient with your approach to relationships sometimes, but mainly I want you to be happy.
   
   Besides, I want to talk about all kinds of random geekery built up over the last however many years. I'm working on yet another version of better email discipline, so I hope I'll do better next year than last.
   
   
2. Dear E,
   I have a collection of correspondence between the writer Henri (Alain) Fournier and his best friend Jacques Rivière in the first decade of the previous century. Rivière writes:

   Si exagéré que cela puise te paraître, je vivais de cela et pour cela, pensant à tant de choses et surtout à tant d'autres... je m'étudiais en grande partie pour me raconter à toi.

   I have all kinds of things to talk to you about, so many ongoing conversations dating back most of a decade by now. And some of the things I wanted to say to you years ago aren't true any more, because I am still changing and discovering, and much of that is informed by our wonderful conversations.
   
   I'm glad that we manage to catch eachother on g-talk from time to time. I love you.
   
   
3. Dear D,
   I wrote you an e-card for Thanksgiving, but I don't think you received it. And I know there are good reasons why you don't socialize online any more, and we were never much for one-to-one email. But I'd still like to hear about your life, even if you think you don't have much news beyond "still working on my thesis, still in love". I will try to contact you again and see if we can arrange a phonecall.
   
   
4. Dear E,
   I hope you are enjoying your well-deserved break and time with your husband. Also I hope that you will find a way through all your current stresses and find a way to appreciate the positive sides of this country. My country, really, and my Jewish community home.
   
   We should make arrangements to spend time together some time between the secular festivals and Pesach. Meanwhile I am finding your journals inspiring, and thinking of you often.
   
   
5. Dear S,
   I want to stay in touch with you, but I hardly know how. There's so much geography, and you don't hang out in my online spaces any more. I miss you very much, and I really hope that at some point I'll get a chance to hear more about your religious journey, your wonderful wife, all the things that I can just barely imagine about your life now. Whenever we do talk I'm reminded how much I like you, even if there's months or years in between conversations.
   
   
6. Dear E,
   The extent I'm crushing on you is getting embarrassing. I really appreciate how well we get on as friends even though I'm sure I'm being utterly obvious. You've been travelling a lot recently, and I kept meaning to write emails to remind you of home whenever you managed to get online, but I got tongue-tied. Everything is so natural and un-awkward in person; let's make more anti-geography plans!
   
   
7. Dear B,
   We've been friends for something close to half my life already, certainly all of my adulthood. Those paper letters we used to pour our hearts into when we were teenagers aren't really practical any more, but I wish we could talk more often than geography and full-time academic jobs allow. I want to continue making plans to see just you, not surrounded by other people (even though you have the most marvellous social circle imaginable!)
   
   
8. Dear H,
   I know you're going through some tough things at the moment. I keep starting emails and finding my words entirely inadequate. Even though I know that inadequate words are better than no contact at all, I still can't quite formulate anything. But I am thinking of you and wishing you well, and reading everything in your journal, and I plan to get over myself.
   
   
9. Dear J,
   I've loved you for about a decade now, and it doesn't really help either of us very much. Still, you've entirely proved wrong the dictum that it's not possible to be friends when there are unrequited feelings going on, and I'm immeasurably grateful for that. (You don't really belong in this list, because we talk often and I can't really say I owe you email, but I wanted to say this anyway.)
   
   Thank you for being the dearest of dear badgers, and for inspiring me with your scholarship and your feminism and your incredible kindness.
   
   
10. Dear J,
    I love you. And we should answer some outstanding questions so we can make that decision.

I don't think I'll manage these on 10 consecutive days, especially not with Christmas in the middle. But I'll have a go at working down the rest of the list over the next few weeks!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

My greatest regret about letting my ongoing correspondence overwhelm me is being less regularly in touch with you. I don't even comment on your journal much, cos I feel guilty about writing brief comments when I "should" be emailing you.

You shouldn't let that stop you, as I no longer expect emails from you (alas). I appreciate that it's difficult to find the time to write long emails when you're in a relationship of your own (and have such a busy life as you do). Emails would be nice, but they'd be the icing on the cake. I'd rather have cake with no icing than no cake at all.

Could you remind me what your plans are for the Limmud period, please?

—M

[forthwritten]

I like your take on this - much less passive-aggressive than in its usual format.