Simple Acts of Kindness

Getting (snail) mail has always been one of my favorite things.  Maybe it has to do with my love of all things design and paper, thus I am a sucker for well-coordinated thank you notes and envelopes.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that getting something in the mail is (usually) an unexpected small thrill in your day. The kind of thrill that an email or Facebook notification just cannot satisfy.  I am a firm believer that no matter how far technology advances, the value of a handwritten note or letter will always remain the same.

While I am on the topic of times changing and the value of precious things being upheld, I have a few thoughts on friendship. When I was growing up, my mom always told me that as I became older it would be more and more difficult to maintain friendships.  At the time, I was a blissfully ignorant 18 year old with more friends than I could count.  I remember walking through the halls of my high school, not only knowing the name of every person in my 800-student graduating class, but also knowing that there was some common thread that tied me to at least most of them.  At 18, I did not know the value of having so many familiar faces around on a daily basis.  

In college, I still had many acquaintances, but rather than having a common thread that I could identify, these were just people whose names I knew and I would see on most Friday and Saturday nights.  Acquaintances became more distant, and close friends became like siblings.  College friends watch you grow as you try to find your niche in life.  They stand by and observe as you take on class projects that give them perspective into who you will become, and bring you coffee as you cram for finals until 4 am.  College friends must be chosen carefully, because they will, without a doubt, see you at your best and at your worst.  

Today, I recognize that I have entered the time in my life that my mom had warned me about, and I did my best to stay ignorant to for as long as I possibly could.  My friends have become a mix of people that I met throughout my life, some that I knew would always be there, others are a pleasant surprise. I realize how difficult it is to maintain good friendships in adulthood unless the common thread that ties you together has the strength of a braided rope.  Over the past few days, I have really started to understand the value of the friendships that will be around for multiple milestones in my lifetime. I realized that it is easy to be a friend when someone visibly needs one, but true friends are around when you do need one, and when you don't.   

Thus brings me to my point: I received the note in the picture below via snail-mail on a day that I did not think that I needed a friend.  I was perfectly content to go about my normal routine: work, home, exercise, eat, work, sleep. Repeat. Receiving this simple, seemingly anonymous, letter in the mail turned an ordinary day into an extraordinary one.  It took me less than a second to identify the sender, not by the style of her handwriting, but by the value of our friendship.   I am so thankful for friend K, and thankful for what this small note brought me to realize about friendships. 

Have you ever received a small act of kindness that brought you to realize something larger about life? What was it?

Letters and lovliness,