Okay so an old friend surprised the heck out of me by not only replying to a letter I sent with an e-mail but also maintaining that line of semi-instant communication for the first few days. It started with a simple 'hey I got your letter' e-mail and turned into a marathon of messages sent back and forth catching up on almost 13 years of lost time. Questions were asked and answered by both of us, the easy ones at least, and some of the e-mails read more like short stories than your typical short, sweet, and to the point electronic communication forms.
She told me she couldn't answer all of my questions in writing, that some should be answered in person. I can deal with that and I agreed that we should find some time to chat face to face. Our schedules don't match very well and since I'm back in school once again I suspect it will be hard for us to get together for a few weeks at least. I'm okay with that. I have no problem speaking my mind in writing and have done so with our e-mails. What I got back in return appeared to be honest, yet slightly reserved, responses. I even sent along a partially written story from the archives that was partly the motivation to find her again last month. She read it ... along with a lengthy e-mail that accompanied it explaining the answer to one of her questions ... then things changed a little.
The e-mails went from paragraphs to just a few sentences. She told me she was drafting a letter to send my way and would be writing it first with pen and paper (the same way I wrote my initial letter to Jack last fall) and then typing it up to send. This probably meant there was a lot of thought going into her reply to my story and e-mail ... so I waited patiently over the weekend while she composed it. I respect that method of getting your thoughts out in ink first and then compiling them in electronic form. There is something about holding the pen in you hand and taking the time to write out each word that a keyboard can never replace. In general I type everything and print it if a paper copy is required but I also keep a hand written journal and always hand write poetry before ever touching a keyboard. Call it 'old school' if you wish but it's part of my creative process. Even when writing stories and novels I tend to at least make lists of bullet points on paper rather than just typing them up; but I digress.
It's now three days later and after a few 1 or 2 line e-mails she told me the letter was done but she didn't think she could send it. She called the house over the weekend and didn't leave a message on the machine when I didn't answer. Sunday I sent a quick e-mail to confirm that it was her who called (the last name on the caller ID matched but I didn't have her phone number for comparison) and asked what she called for. I haven't talked to her in almost 13 years and except for about a weeks worth of e-mail we haven't even communicated since the summer of 1995. It seemed a little out of the blue that she would pick up the phone and call me ... or maybe it's just not something I would have done and didn't expect her to either. I'm glad she called, or at least that I'm high enough on her list of friends that she wanted to talk to me and hear my voice again after such a long time, but ... she has now told me that the letter she's been promising to send needs to be revised ... she's stalling.
I don't know what it's about, other than her, and I'm not certain what she's so afraid of. I've tried to tell her that I won't judge her based on it's contents, that nothing she could say to me would change our friendship. She's not responding. She's responded to other e-mails with answers to simple questions but not to anything even close to personal or about this mystery letter. What the hell is she so afraid of? It's starting to feel like she's hiding something ... unless it's a dead body I doubt it will even shock me.
Could it be something about me or our friendship? Could it be about her past or the summer she fell off the face of the Earth? Does it go back farther than that? Was she the one who told me about something horrific in their past that we have in common? Is it just a trust thing or is she afraid that after reading it I'll choose to walk away from the friendship?
I trust her as much as any other close friend and I would hope she feels the same based on our history ... but it's been a long time since we were a part of each other's lives and she was never able to be honest with me back then. It was not a choice on her part, it was the dynamic of how we met and where we spent our time together ... she had no choice in that. She now has a choice and as of yet seems to be choosing to keep her secrets though she has teased me with the thought that she wants to tell me something. Ahh the complications of old friendships I let slip away after high school and spent time regretting the loss of!
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