2024 Project Revealed

Around 20:30 London time on New Year’s Eve, I broke my silence. I let Hans in on a year-long secret. I needed him to know why I’d be interrupting our TV watching in the last few hours of the year to write a letter. I explained that for the past 364 days, I’d written one letter each day. I’d chosen to follow Rob Bell’s advice: do your creative work and tell people about it later.

I have a track record of undertaking year-long projects. I like the way a project gives me something to focus on and look forward to. I devise these projects guided by curiosity and interest in how I might examine an aspect of my life and experience a measure of growth over the year. I create just enough parameters to give me structure, and then let the rest unfold organically.

The boundaries of this year’s project were simple: each day I would write a letter. It didn’t have to get mailed the same day, but simply be written. Constraints are a welcome element in my creative life, and the constraint of this project was that I could not write more than one letter a day.

It was a simple plan given how frequently I write letters, but in the back of my mind I suspected that this daily practice would reveal some interesting things. I looked forward to finding out what they might be.

I took some notes through the year to help record the in-the-moment experiences and observations.

In the first two weeks of 2024, I noted that names rushed to mind, and I considered what to do with this backlog of letters. Should I send more than one letter after all? I was concerned about sending timely Christmas and birthday thank you notes, but I stuck to my pre-arranged letter cadence. This was my first epiphany: before 2024, as names came to mind, I would write a letter. Some days, this could be three or four people. This project asked me to slow down. So, I simply addressed envelopes as names came to me and knew who I’d write tomorrow and the next day.

I notice that my letter-writing habit is a form of self-soothing. Limiting myself to one a day comes with some discomfort. Sitting in discomfort is a muscle I’ve learned to flex. A form of soul strength training. It is not always easy, but I know from experience it is good for me.

One month in, I noted how much this daily letter writing is a practice of all the things I’ve been working on over the past nine years: living in the present, letting go of the need to have things planned out, self-soothing by organizing stamps, itemizing how much stationery I have and how long my current supply will take for me to use.

There were repeated days when several names or situations came to mind, and I continued to feel discomfort about only being able to write one person at a time. I recognized the feeling. It was like the panicky feeling I used to have walking toward the center of the labyrinth. I wrestled in these walks with letting go of the outcome or where the next twist and turn on the path would appear. Like the labyrinth, these letters are an invitation to examine my relationship with uncertainty. The letter project marks another layer of progress and practice toward wholeness and contentment no matter what circumstances surround me.

Another month passed, and I was still confronting letter writing as a form of self-soothing and feeling compelled to plan things too far out. On occasion, I counted out my stationery to see how far into the future the notecards stored in one desk would last and then I’d stop myself. I reminded myself that I’d use it up whenever it happened. This practice was a mirror reflecting my rigidities and highlighting where there were opportunities to let go or at least ease up.

In May, I wrote, I can tell that limiting myself to one letter per day is a discipline some days. When the evening is quiet and I don’t know what to do with myself, I see how writing letters is a bid for connection. Not being “able” to write a second letter asks me to dig a little deeper. To connect with myself. Five months in, it is doing some work on me.

In June, I learned about the impending postage increase, and was glad to be half a year into the project before stamps cost more. I am enjoying the daily practice, but don’t feel like I’ll repeat it. I won’t feel the need to track it again, but I’m enjoying the project. I remain most curious about what my stationery supply will look like by the end of December. I like my rule to use up the oldest paper first. It gives me something to look forward to in anticipation of writing my way to the new stock.

Over the summer, I observed the different ways people come to mind and what inspires me to reach out to people I don’t regularly write.

My final note is dated October 10. This was one of those weeks when I wished I didn’t have to adhere to one letter per day. And when I say I “have to” I don’t really, but per the rules of this project, I chose to stick to them. Some weeks I can’t think of a thing to write or of a name of someone who might enjoy or need the outreach. This week in October was not one of them. Weeks like this have me looking forward to the end of the project when I can write to whomever I want on any given day. But for now, I continue to appreciate the project’s constraint.

I have been a letter writer since way back. Like from around 1983 when my stationery featured Cabbage Patch Dolls and the Muppets. In those days, my main recipients were my Grandpa and Grandpa Rupard and Auntie Jay. For many years, my letter writing made me feel out of step with my peers. Few people sent letters, and I thought my letter writing emphasized my anachronistic ways. And then one day I learned that a letter of mine arrived on a day when the recipient contemplated breaking their years-long sobriety. They reevaluated this monumental decision after reading my letter. (The letter contents said nothing about sobriety.) After this, I have treated the letter-writing practice as a spiritual practice. I know that my words, paired with divine timing, matter. A letter mailed days before and then delayed finally arrived just when another friend needed it. I hear this a lot, and this feedback encourages me to keep writing and buying postage.

I write letters with no expectation of letters in return, so you can imagine my delight each time a letter came my way. I received 30 letters in response. I also received 38 text messages or emails acknowledging the letter I’d sent. Eighteen times a recipient verbally acknowledged the letter. I appreciated knowing that my letters arrived!

My letters serve many purposes. They are bids for connection. They inoculate me from occasional loneliness. They cultivate and reinforce my many long-distance relationships. They are an extension of my ministry in spiritual companionship.

On that final night of the project, Hans (a recipient of seven letters and countless texts) asked me thoughtful questions about the experience. What did you learn? Had anything surprised you in the process of the daily practice?  I shared the epiphany I’d had about this practice being a form of self-soothing and how important it was to move away from it being a crutch.

I’ve thought about our conversation repeatedly over the past two weeks. If he asked me what most surprised me now, I’d have to admit how wonderful it was to have a partner who is so attentive to my interests, admires how my brain works, and is curious about what inspires my heart to do the things I do. I didn’t expect that to be the final takeaway of the project, but I am so grateful for him every single day. He reflected to me in those few minutes what I wanted the year’s worth of letters to communicate to each recipient: I see you. I love you. You matter to me.