powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
Recent News... Just for Pope Gregory... |
2001-10-30 - 2:10 p.m. Ungifts and Unsent letters I was going to talk about the rough Monday I had, and tell you all about how my sweet husband was cheeried me up when I was cranky for no reason. But, I'm in an introspective mood, so I'm going to tell you about ungifts and unsent letters. Ungifts are presents you find for people you know but love them enough *not* to actually buy them the gift. "I saw this really bizarre thing [insert description], but decide not to inflict it upon you." Like the twice life sized squirrel nutcracker I *didn't* buy Gen. You put a nut in it's paws, cranked the tale and it crushed the nut and dropped the meat and shell in a little wooden bucket. A truly hideous creation. Then, because Gen whined about the not receiving anything tangible as part of the ungift phenomenon, I bought Alan the twenty times bigger than life inflatable frog I found in the discount bin of a North Carolina garden shop. I thought it'd be a nice addition to the pond, but, Alan said � well, he said several things, but the frog toy did not go into the pond. Ungifts are all the dolphin things I find that I do *not* buy Mel and all the fish paraphenalia I do *not* get for Vic. Ungifts would be the squirrel Q and Gen bought Dareth, that I didn't think they'd seriously give him. Ungifts would be the deranged yellow smiley face man I found in a gumball machine and gave Kymber - oddly, she liked that thing. Ungifts are all about intent versus action - things you thought about doing, but didn't subject your friends to. What about all the things we should do, and don't? Back in high school, I had to write an essay defining my life goals. I did poorly on this standard teenage assignment because I didn't outline a graduate-get job-have kids-climb mountain plan for my life. I essentially said if I could accomplish one thing in my life, it would be to have no regrets. "The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone." -Harriet Beeche Stowe It's a good goal, but it's not possible. It's not possible to live without having regrets. We all have things we wish we could fix, things we wish we could say but it's too socially awkward, so you can't. So you live, and learn, and apologize when you can, and wear your scars. Why am I thinking about this? Because I found a diary today about Unsent Letters. It's an anonymous collection of posts written by various diaryland members. Some are rants of things you'd never say out loud. Some are apologies to people you can never reach, about fences you can never mend. Some are love letters, about all the things deep inside you don't have the courage to say. Some are letters of goodbye to the dearly departed or letters of hello to friends you'll never meet. One was a letter from a man to his best friend, a female, talking about how it broke his heart to watch her marry someone else. What Celynen said is true - since my diary isn't anonymous, I sometimes reel myself in. At heart, I am an introvert. I haven't even mentioned to my family I have an on-line diary. I find the unsent letters strangely reassuring. It's a catalog of the human emotions most of us never express, but it feels less lonely to know we all have them. Unsend a letter today. Your life will come, your life will go. Still you'll feel it's alright - someone will get a letter to your soul -Indigo Girls, "Virginia Woolf", 10,000 Curfew album � � � 
|