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2007

9th July
Smells

2nd July
Smile

26th June
Waterlogged

11th June
Plans

6th June
Letters

21st May
Friends

May 9th
Stereotypes

May 1st
Broken

April 16th
Climbing hills

April 9th
The Three Trees

March 28th
Toby the SuperDog

March 19th
Mountains

March 4th
Lone Daffodil

February 26th
Working hours

February 19th
Memory

February 12th
Piercings

February 5th
Patience

January 29th
Surprise

January 22nd
Wind

January 15th
Honesty

January 8th
My Car

January 3rd
Happy New Year

Letters
6^th June 2007 

Last week I went back to my roots, and travelled home to Common Moor, in Cornwall, the place of my childhood. Nothing much happens in Common Moor so every time I go back there I like to look for the small changes in this sleepy village, but mostly I love to find comfort in how it is still the same.

While I was at home my mum got a letter about her college reunion coming up this summer (I’ll not tell you how many years it is since she’s been at college, but it’s a lot!). The organiser of this great event wanted everyone in her year to write 100 words about their life since college. As I said that is a lot of years, and one hundred words isn’t that many. In fact if you count from the beginning of this to the word ‘organiser’ that is 100 words. How can you sum up all that you’ve achieved, all that you’ve seen and done in that many years, in just a paragraph? What do you describe? What do you leave out? What can you say about the person my mum has become throughout a life-time of experiences?

Also while I was at home I found a draw full of old cards and letters all addressed to me. There were birthday cards and Christmas cards and even the odd valentines day card. There were letters from relatives and letters from friends, written when I was at university, written when I lived in America, written when I was at primary school. As I read through these letters and cards I laughed and cried. I remembered jokes that I shared with my close friends, people who I have now lost touch with. I remembered the love of family members who have since passed away. I remembered people I’d forgotten even existed as well as those I’ve now resolved to catch up with again. As I read all that people had written to me it was as though I could see my life, all that I had done, spread before me in the handwriting of others.

As I sat and reminisced my mum pointed out that I had to clear the draw out as she needed it. My parents have a 4 bedroom house, just for the two of them and they need one extra draw’s worth of space!? But why was I keeping these correspondences? Why did I desperately cling onto scraps of paper full of out of date gossip from people I don’t know anymore? I admit that I am a hoarder, holding on to useless bits of anything in case it comes in handy or to remind me of a special time, but even for me most of these letters were in fact just rubbish.

I guess that a part of me wanted to remember who I was as a child, a teenager, a student. To remember who I was before I became the me I am now. There is a safety in going home and reverting back to being the child, being in a safe space protected by parents and familiarity. That is no doubt why when I go home, I like to be the same as when I lived there. (Luckily for me the rate of change in Common Moor is so slow, that even if I return as a pensioner it will not be that different!)

So I take a deep breath and I throw the cards and letters away. Despite my fears, in getting rid of them I have not destroyed the relationships and events they were reminders of. Everything is still the same, although there is one more empty draw in the Husk household. I am still the same person I was before but now instead of being sad at all that I have lost, I can rejoice in all the people who have contributed to who I am now.

My life is a mere 28 years and yet I seem to have done so many things and met so many people. Imagine how much greater this number is for my mum. Once again I am stumped as to how you sum up that wealth of life experiences in just 100 words. All the things that have changed, all the relationships that were once so close are now just a memory, all those letters and cards from ** years of life. There is however, one thing that has remained constant in all of this. It hasn’t faltered, faded or drifted away. It is the same today as it was yesterday, and even the day my mum graduated from college, and it will be the same tomorrow too.

God and his great big love for us will never change, can never be destroyed or thrown away. As we grow and develop into the people that God made us to be, as we change our schools, our friends, our jobs and our homes, he is the same. He is the constant in our ever-changing world, when everything else in life has it’s season, school, work, friendships, family and homes, with God he’s available all year round.