Love Notes & Apologies

I am sentimental.

When I resigned my teaching job seven years ago, I faced the arduous task of cleaning out 18 years of a career that had accumulated in my classroom. Boxes, file folders, cabinets - all filled with mementos of a dream that became a reality. If a student gave it to me, I kept it. Photographs, letters, notes, and the occasional essay or quiz - each one of them meaningful to me in some way.  Given that we live a tiny house, bringing it all home wasn't an option, so week after week my 'keep' pile went through yet another purging. Eventually I whittled it all down to a medium sized cardboard box that, in my best estimation, represents the highlights of a long and memorable chapter of my life. 

Once upon a time, during my single years, my tiny house provided ample space to hoard a lifetime of cards, notes, and letters from family and friends, but as more people moved in - first Collins, then Toby -  the more keepsakes had to move out.  You might as well pluck my fingernails off one by one as make me part with these treasures (I still cry every time I look at a piece of paper with my grandmother's handwriting on it).   

Nothing will ever take the place of a handwritten note or letter. 

Handwriting communicates to the recipient that the giver spent something way more precious than money; he spent time. Time to pick out a card or a pretty piece of stationery. Time to think of just the words to say to convey a heartfelt message. Time to put pen to paper using a totally unique font that cannot be found on any computer or smart phone.

Have you figured out where I'm going with this? Sure you have! I'm a pack-rat (errr, sentimental woman), in love with a handsome man who knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that my love language is best spoken in the tongue of his penmanship. But...in our life of tight budgets and even tighter living spaces, there isn't room for buying cards for every occasion (birthday, anniversary, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, just because, etc.), much less a place for the boxes required to store them all (because I won't throw them away) until the day comes that my grandchildren are helping my son clean out my 'estate' while commenting, "Why in the world did MeeMaw keep all this junk? I guess digital files didn't exist way back in her time. Didn't she know piles of paper attract bugs and are kindling for a house fire?" 

In our quest to conserve money and space, yet still love each other with handwritten words, Collins and I decided a couple of years ago that we would start a new tradition. Each of us picked out and purchased a blank journal book for the other, wrote a love letter in it, then we exchanged them as gifts on Toby's first Christmas. The journals are kept in our respective night stand drawers. On his birthday, our anniversary, when I have a special quote to share, when I need to say I'm sorry, or just because I feel like it, I sneak Collins' journal out, spill the contents of my heart onto its pages, then lay it on his pillow, signaling to him that a new entry is waiting to be read. He follows the same ritual for me. When there are no more blank pages, it's time to purchase a new journal.

Originally the books were intended to replace cards and other keepsakes, but they quickly took on a life of their own. They have become the place where we pour out our souls to each other, not just for Valentine's Day or Christmas, but whenever our hearts are full and running over for each other.  And not always full in a happy, starry-eyed, head-over-heels in love kind of way, but also when they're full of brokenness and pain over the way we've wronged each other at times. 

For now our journals are intensely personal and private. But one day we plan to share them. Our prayer is that their contents will not be shocking because we will have lived our lives in such a way that Toby will have always seen us demonstrate for him how to love and forgive each other well.  We pray that what he sees both publicly and privately are parents who hug, kiss, hold hands, and giggle as well as shed tears, forgive grievances, and restore relationship on a daily basis - certainly not perfectly, and probably not as often as we should, yet consistently. When the time comes that he is ready to meet the woman God has prepared especially for him at the altar, we will offer him and his bride a peek at our love notes and apologies - a glimpse of what it looks like when two woefully sinful people, covered by God's unfailing grace and mercy, commit to marriage. Who knows? Maybe they will write their own books that they will someday pair with ours to share with my grandbabies, who will, in turn, do the same and create a legacy of love for generations to come. Who knows?