Gratitude Day 24 - Real Mail

There is no better feeling than getting real mail.  Nothing. Like, back massages are great.  Sneezing, falling asleep after you cry?  Good stuff.  But when you're sorting through the mail you haven't checked because you live in a townhouse now and need a key and to walk outside to the mailbox, and there's bills, bills, bills, parking tickets, overdue taxes, and then THERE'S A LETTER WITH HANDWRITING ON IT!!

Lately, real mail usually comes in three forms.

Letters from Amanda: Though these have decreased in frequency over the years as Amanda has fallen in love and gotten married, I can always count on a few real letters a year from my best friend.  Amanda letters are special because they are more than just paper in an envelope.  Sometimes they are in the form of handmade stationary by her godson Isaac.  Other times she writes on weird stationary from San Francisco about which she is suffering buyer's remorse.  Once she turned a photograph of me jumping off the bow of our ship into a postcard.  Often she makes the envelopes from calendar pages.  Always, every time, they are sealed with a tiny heart.  This heart has come to symbolize our best friendship and is the last thing I see before I open envelopes with tales of my country mouse's most recent adventures.

Packages from Uncle Jim: Uncle Jim has really embraced the lion mascot of my new school, and he and aunt Gina find tiny stuffed lions at garage sales and send them my way.  It is so nice to know they are thinking of me and my kids, and I have quite a collection going.

Cards from Family and Friends: Birthdays, holidays, TNT donations, all wrapped in the shiny gloss of a papyrus greeting card.

Special Yearly Treat - Gwyn's Christmas Letter: G$, my roommate from Mississippi, has a traditional Christmas letter.  Usually it comes out in April -- in a glittery Christmas card.  It is always many chapters long and has tales of romance, car trouble, and gay stuff, both joyful and just gay.   And it is ALWAYS hilarious.

So today, I am grateful for the magic of real mail.  Always a surprise, it brings me the simplest, most old fashioned kind of joy.