I was talking with my Mom today, and Scotland was mentioned in the conversation. That's when I asked her, "Remember my pen pal?".
When I was in grade school, I had a pen pal from Scotland. Her name was Karen. We did the typical exchange of letters, talked about our families, school, interests, sent each other photos and small trinkets. After a year or so of exchanging letters once a month (this is waaay before e-mail, folks), I guess I just got too cool to take the time to respond to her letters, and didn't want to do it anymore. I remember one of her last letters, asking me what happened and why I didn't write her back. I totally blew it off even after my Mom encouraged me to continue.
Fast forward to college. I remember thinking about her once or twice and wondered what happened to her. Was she going to college too? Did she have a job? Was she already married with a family? And then I forgot about her again. Until today.
I started feeling awful about how stupid that was of me to blow off a friendship I had with a girl in Scotland. She was a nice girl too, even if in her pictures she had abnormally large feet for her age (I threw that in there for you, Little). It makes me wonder where she is today? Would I be able to track her down? Would she even remember me or want to talk to me? I hate those "I wish I had done this or that" moments. I hate living life and feeling bad about something or having regrets. Obviously I am overreacting about a pen pal, but still, that opens the door to so many other things that I wanted to do, but didn't. Too chicken. Too lazy. Too apathetic.
A person only lives once. I have to remember to try new things. Go to new places. Maintain the friendships that are important to me.
It's probably been 19-years since I last heard from Karen. I sure hope that she is doing well.
3 comments:
This inspires me to do a Nest poll - did you have a pen pal? from where? - but I don't want to steal your topic so I wont.
I had a pen pal from Hong Kong name Claire (her Americanized name). It only lasted about a year, and I don't remember who quit writing first.
I have a coworker who has had the same pen pal for, like, 45 years or something like that. I think that's awesome.
That's nice of you to reflect on Karen. There are always so many coulda woulda shouldas...
Do you have an old address? This might be a fun challenge.
I had a pen pal, but it didn't work out pretty immediately.
Awww! I didn't realize where this question got started. I had one from Kenya (a girl that didn't care about what I looked like). We lost touch too. Can't remember who was the last to write.
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