I cashed the check, and wrote them a newsy note thanking them and giving them life updates. As many of you noted, I’m certain that they were not trying to be snarky jerks with the note, that it was just an ill-conceived and poorly executed attempt to reach out. They are nice people, just a little brusque. (My godmother, for example, once counseled against going to law school in Chicago, also known as the city where I grew up, because “God, Chicago is such an effing backwater, you might as well go to law school in Nebraska.” Helpful!)
Am I the only one who feels like a total moron when writing chatty letters with life updates? It feels narcissistic, to assume that people are going to care where I went on my three-day weekend or what my plans are for this summer. I know that family and friends want these updates, so I’m working on getting better about writing more regularly, but I struggle to write them without feeling life a doofus, is all I’m saying.
Speaking of feeling like a total doofus: I had the first ticklings of a cold on Saturday morning, made worse by all the dust I kicked up doing our annual spring cleaning. How did I respond to those tickings of a cold? Did I take to my bed early, rest, push fluids? No! Instead I went to a bar where a friend and I were cohosting a birthday party, drank more adult beverages than I have consumed in a single evening in at least a year, and ended the night with an embarrassing, if predictable, Very Serious Conversation with a friend, complete with crying from both parties. Needless to say, I woke up Sunday morning with a full-fledged case of Death By Headcold. If you need me, I’ll be the one snurfling into a kleenex and pounding gatorade.
I was wondering how your party went. Oh my – well, did you have fun leading up to the very serious conversation?! I hope so (and am sorry I missed it – dinner went much later than planned).
As far as writing notes about your life … so long as you are aware of how awkward it feels to write them, you’re probably doing a fine job. By that, I mean, it’s the people that are so caught up with their own lives that they think everyone cares and writes multi-page memos, complete with family pictures, for holiday cards. Oh wait, I swear my mom doesn’t do that. No really, she does. hahaha. All I’m saying is that by the very nature of being worried about how much you write, what you say is likely more than fine and exactly what people want to hear!
Feel better…from both the note and the cold.
I TOTALLY hear you on the newsy notes. Awkward. I now have the added bonus of sending pictorial updates of my child as well, which also makes me itch. I don’t want to be one of THOSE, you know?
Sorry you’re sick. And again sorry about not being able to make it to the party. And, um, sorry you were crying. I. . .I might just stop now.
I have that problem too. “So, everything in MY life is great. Wait, did you say you cared?” I mean, don’t I do enough of that on the blog?
Well, maybe I’m a little egocentric because I’ve never had these thoughts about sending others newsy updates on my life! I guess I know that I like to get snail mail – I like to know people were thinking of me for the five minutes it took them to write the notecard – and I assume others do as well. I don’t necessarily feel like I need to give them minute details of my life, but since I don’t see them very often, it frequently ends up being stuff they really don’t know anyway. So…I think it’s easier to put yourself in the card receiver’s hands. Would they know this info if you didn’t write it? Then don’t write it. If they wouldn’t know it, then it’s fair game.
Does that make any sense at all? Or am I just an egomaniac?