dear sally...

I have a friend that I made during the whole United debacle. She was on "the" flight with me and so we both landed in the same boat. we vowed to keep in touch and have done a decent job at it. though, i haven't seen her since that rainy tuesday morning in April of 2006, we have been pretty good about e-mailing. I love keeping in touch with her. When we met, we were both in pretty strange places in life, as I think are most people who decide to become flight attendants. But, I love keeping in touch with her, because when we write, we really write. Long drawn out e-mails about life and most importantly...boys. The great thing is, that I never know who she is talking about or the "back" story to it- so she has to fill me in on everything if i'm to fully understand. The good part about this is, you can never fully fill someone in on ALL the back story to ANYONE or ANY situation. So, I get a different perspective than say, her friends who are right there or her family who is right there. She has given me lots of advice from this special perspective that I really treasure, and though, i'm great at asking for advice but terrible at taking it...I value her opinion and always seem to write to her when i'm in dire straits over something or someone. and so, on this particular night as i find myself in such a situation, I decided to write her. as I was writing her (actually asking her advice about whether or not I should write another person and tell them what's on my mind) I started thinking about this. you see, i don't have the greatest history with letters or long e-mails. i've never taken that whole "write it and address it, but whatever you do...DON'T send it" advice to heart. I mean, if i took the time to write it, then...why not send it. But the thing is, writing is my outlet for what I'm feeling. But a lot of the things I FEEL, don't need to be shared. at least not right now or in "this" particular context. and a lot of things I write are "of the moment." I am a very spontaneous person. I'll come up with an idea, be ALL ABOUT it until a.) I do it or b.) i can't find a partner in crime and/or the moment passes and I forget about it. So a lot of what I write and send off are spontaneous tidbits that are probably left locked in my overactive brain. All of this to say that Hanna, my friend is now on the receiving end of all my crazy letters. I write out exactly what i'm feeling (after explaining as much back story as I can type) and send it off to her. There, that way, someone read it who is a neutral 3rd party. I have written it, so it's off my chest and usually worked out in my head. It's the perfect solution. Too bad, I didn't meet her,say, a year earlier. But no use regretting now. And sometimes, she'll fire back and tell me that I should actually "address" the situation,although usually not by letter, but mostly, these e-mails just sit in her inbox. which is exactly where they should be. It kind of goes back to my "everything looks better in the morning." thing. Once something is written out, I realize just how silly or stupid it actually is. It no longer threatens my happiness by staying locked inside. And I love to go back to my sent mail and see the e-mails i've written to her over the years. let's just say, THANK GOD she received and filtered this stuff. MOST of it is so not important now that it's laughable. And journaling is just not that effective for me. I need to actually tell someone this stuff. People laugh when I call her my pen pal, and that really doesn't convey how special she is to me. Most of my closest friends don't even know she exists or that we have this little penpalship. heck, i don't even know if i'll ever see her again. hopefully I will. but for now, i'm happy sending my neurotic thoughts and crazy opinions across the e-mail waves to the safety of her inbox. and I like getting hers to. we are COMPLETELY different people and just reading her e-mails teaches me so much about living a non-drama, take no bull kind of life. my favorite line from her last e-mail(i'm sure she won't mind me sharing) is..."Got burned by a dude, not worth going into or thinking about. Just need to get over it. You know how stupid and crazy I am. There are always more where that came from" haha. how simple and to the point. it takes me 4 paragraphs to say essentially what she said in 4 sentences. so that is my rant for the night- most of you will probably get nothing out of this blog, since I may be the last remaining person who likes to write actual letters "explaining my behavior" or "pleading my case," but maybe someone will.

ps, if you don't get the "sally" bit then you need to watch Felicity. STAT.