Time Commitment: 5 min, here and there till finish
This project was originally created by my friend/classmate, Kathi. It involves reaching out to people who have been special to you at different times in your past--through life's highs and lows. Ultimately, she sent these special people a letter acknowledging their influence on her life, as well as a prompt for them to decorate a self-addressed and stamped blank postcard (included in the envelope with the letter) to be sent back to her. Kathi's version involved exploring and expanding what "family" means. Her process throughout this project was so inspiring that I wanted to try it myself! My own version explores "friendship" in a similar way.
Procedure: I set up a very organized, step-by-step procedure for myself, which I completed with 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there, so I did not get overwhelmed!
1. Gather/buy materials: stamps, blank postcards, envelopes ("invitation" size worked nicely for me)
2. Compile list of friends you would like to include. This could be a short list or a long list, depending on how much work you can put into the project. I picked 12 particularly special people.
3. Gather addresses for your list. Private Facebook messages worked well for this step.
4. Type a (single) letter that will go to every person on your list. Include: explanation of project, why you chose these people, prompt for postcard decorating, and what you will use their responses for.
First, I chose not to make individual letters for each person because I thought it might skew their responses. I wanted to see how each person would react uniquely to the exact same letter. I did, however, explain this detail in my writing, just to acknowledge this seemingly impersonal aspect. Second, my prompt was: "What does friendship mean to you?" I made sure to explain that whatever "answer" the person came up with was perfect and correct. I encouraged creativity, noting the "answer" could involve words, shapes, colors, etc. Last, I let my friends know that I will be writing blog posts about this project and they should let me know if they would not like their postcard to be featured.5. Self-address and stamp enough blank postcards for your list
6. Stamp envelopes and write friend's addresses. During this step, I encourage you to think about each person. What memories come to mind? Happy ones? Sad? You may not have talked to this person in awhile. Notice the vulnerability that comes up around reaching out to others. Especially other people that are important to you. Reaching out is hard to do sometimes, but the possibility of the person reaching back can be incredibly rewarding.
7. Place a letter and postcard into each envelope, and mail them off with a sense of hope and pride :)
Why this is wonderful: It attends to your brain! The process of this project stirs up old feelings and memories, and hopefully a few smiles. For me, it was helpful to realize how many people I really do want to keep in touch with--how many special people I have met in my life. Although I did not include every single person who has touched my life, this process definitely reminded me to be thankful for what I have and what I have had in the past. It is also another lesson in patience; we do all this work to get the letters in the mail, then....we wait. (But, that's a story for Pt.2)
