When I left for college my family was really good at sending me letters in the mail. Yes I was old enough, or young enough, or whatever enough that email was a normal method of communication, however there is just something about getting physical mail.

I found my box of saved up mail in my junk drawer.

As a side note, junk drawers, no matter how organized one might be, are super important. It’s in these drawers that treasures are found 🙂 Like old comics cut out of the newspaper or that thing we made when we were in grade 3 that was “Oh soooo cute.”

In my box there were a few typed letters from a friend of the family who was living with my parents. He was…I dunno, 90? It is safe to say he wasn’t young and he had lots of advice for me while I was away in my first year at college. I laughed out loud when I read this Christmas Card from him:

MAY YOUR LIFE BE LONG AND PLESENT
MAY YOU HAVE TEN KIDS AND LOADS OF FRENDS

MERRY XMS, TO YOU.

Ummm, 10 kids – honestly!? I am WAYYYYY BEHIND 🙂

Anyhow in my box of letters there are some really funny notes and a few diaries I started but never finished (I likely got tired of the cover and found a new book to write in).

Perhaps this post is against my better judgement, but I cannot resist.

In my diaries from when I was 20, I didn’t realize this, but I was looking to find “Love”. And this makes me laugh. I will be the first to admit that this term was lost on me in my 20’s. It was a nice catch-all word that was the answer to everything. A little Love.

The problem, as a 20-something snot faced know-it-all, love was staring me in the face all along and I ignored it. I walked around it, I hid from it and yet would write in my diary at night, “I am looking for Love!”

You see the humour in this?! I do 🙂 and frankly it makes me laugh.

For whatever reason I decided that finding love was finding a magical man that I could put on MY mantle (forget about being his prize, I didn’t want to be a prize I wanted to win a prize!)

I can hardly stop myself from laughing and I can understand if this is making no sense but I will do my best to give some clairty (although that just may not be possible.)

When I talk about me walking around love and avoiding it, Love was my family and my close friends. The ones who cared about me and were there to laugh with me, poke fun at me and get away with it.

In my box of letters I see the love they had for me (how did they put up with me!).

So ladies who are in your 20’s who know it all, there are no magical men riding around on dark stallion’s or whatever colour of horse you prefer. There is family and best friends who have your back, who’d take a bullet for you, who’d do anything to keep you safe – that is Love.

I don’t believe love can be found just sitting there in the shade waiting to be happened upon.

I do believe it can be nutured and it can grow into something amazing and that it is worth the effort of friendship.

I am not sure when in my 20’s I stopped with my ridiculous “looking” and just started living – focusing on nurturing my attachments with family and friends and collecting new friends along the way, but it happened and perhaps that is just part of growing up.

It’s like the saying “Do a job you love and the money will come.” I say “Build strong friendships and love will come.”

To not finding Love. 😀 but rather great friendships!

A poem my sister sent me and yes I found it in the box of letters.

Friendship
To laugh and joke a bit, and grasp a friendly hand;
To love a bit and scold a bit, and hope they’ll understand.
To tell one’s secrets hopes and fears, and share a friendly smile;
To have a friend and be a friend is what makes life worthwhile!