Meredith has been cleaning out her house, packing for her move to Austin, and has sent me a couple of packages of interesting things (thanks, Meredith!). One package was a bunch of letters that I wrote to mom and dad while I was in Japan. I read some of them the other night, and was struck by several things... 1, that I used to have legible handwriting (a thing of the past now that I type all the time) 2, that I used to write really good and long letters (a thing of the past now that emails are so short and things are much more busy and condensed than they once were) and 3, that I never really told them much about what was "really" going on in my life.

The tone of the letters is newsy and breezy. I remember being sort of mad that I had to seem so upbeat about jobs (so they wouldn't worry) and so vague about who my friends were (so they wouldn't know I was gay - even though they already knew). It's humorous now to read about my life in San Francisco right after I moved here and imagine how much they must have worried while reading those letters - even though I thought I was smoothing everything over. I sound like I was in some kind of cult, asking them to send money for the nuclear weapons freeze, talking about my multitude of roommates and how we fixed up the guest room (it even has a real bed!) if they wanted to come visit.

Looking back 25 years provides you a really different kind of vision.

The Haight

This entry was posted on Friday, September 13, 2002 at 2:22 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.