Dear Mark

Dear Mark,

Over the past six years I have changed.  When we first met I was a letter writing, card sending person.  I owned a fountain pen that I used on an almost daily basis.  My writing might not have been the most legible but I could still write a sentence in which there might be multiple spelling errors but they were at least my spelling mistakes.

I grant you that I felt some what isolated from the rest of the world but there was radio, and even BBC America to watch for news and a few decent programmes on television in which real actors appeared and writers were employed.  When I wanted to know how some one was I picked up a phone and called them.

I read books.  I read newspapers.  I listened to the news.  I played scrabble on a board in the same room as my challenger.  I played solitaire with a deck of cards that slipped all over the place and got a little tattered but that was okay because it helped me remember all the other times I had played solitaire, rummy, snap.

Then you contacted me.  Your bright smile.  Your apparent charm.  Your use of terms such as "wall", "poke" "tag" and best of all "friends".  You had me at four little words.  I was enchanted.

As my friends list grew and I poked people I didn't really know, I fell ever deeper under your spell.  The fifteen words summaries of my friends days, passions, losses, failures, burst of brilliance, eating habits, drinking habits began to fill my hours.  The photographs demanded my attention.  I was as smitten as any person would be.  All around me I saw people who had begun a similar love affair. Soon I realised that I lagged behind others in the number of friends I had and the amount of posting I achieved every day.

Cards gathered dust. My pen ran dry.  My carpal tunnel condition returned.  I had no idea of the cost of a  first class mail stamp.  My contact with the world thirty feet beyond my front door was reduced to mad dashes to the grocery store.  The library door was never darkened by my presence because I had no time to read a book - I had to keep abreast of all the current happenings that you had laid out before me.

Now some called these trivial and mindless (other cruel words were used but I won't pain you by repeating them - get a thesaurus and start with 'pointless' if you really want to).  I defended you.  I stood beside you in your hour of need.  Okay there were a few others but I know that I was among the first.

I gathered information to share. I traded photos.  I got tagged.  I was poked.  I offered up links and shared every tidbit of news that I came across.  I borrowed from others, I gave succour to the  bored, I was kind, and generous with news of myself and others.  The glow of our romance was warm and bright.  It lifted me up.

Then doubt drifted into our relationship.  I heard that you had many, many, many other friends.  The thought dashed across my mind, only dashing thoughts were now acceptable since my concentration skills had been further reduced by the introduction of PinInterest,  that something was amiss.  Could it be that I had entered the dark realms of the masses?  The terrifying portals of a Hades where no conversations were permitted? Curiousity lying in a corner conquered by apathy unless the subject matter could be dealt with in forty words or less?  Had I joined the ranks of the Bachelor where I was the woman waiting for the single rose of an update in order to feel fulfilled?

In the dark recesses of a drawer I found my fountain pen.  The ink had run dry.  My biros had dried up.  When I checked my address book I found a few out of date addresses.  People had moved. Divorces had taken place.  And I had no idea where most of my friends lived.  So I asked people to send me pictures of where they lived to use in a calendar.  Two people sent me pictures.  Mmmmmmmm I hummed to myself. Reading a request and acting ... apparently I was not alone in doing the first and .... sorry what was that you wrote ...

So Mark the jig is up.

You will still be a friend. I won't delete you from my devices but you are not going to be my vice.  As with all things moderation is the key.  I have shown that I can kick the coke habit and now it is your turn.

I am going to buy cards. I am going to write to friends around the world on paper products that can be recycled, I will buy stamps at the post office, I will misspell, use poor grammar, and I shall wait for weeks, maybe months, for replies to arrive in my mail box.  Over time the responses will be reread, photos reexamined, and eventually my daughters will open boxes and laugh over the contents.  Some will be kept and some will be chucked.  Some will even be lost in the mail but that is okay.  Because I want to see the handwriting of my friends. I want to examine the stamps of their countries.  I want to think about the distance between us.  The oceans the mail has crossed.  I want to see the difference between cards from around the world.  I want some form of communication that took time, thought and was between us.  I will send photographs.  I will celebrate time.

So Mark keep your chin up.  I still enjoy your company but, poke, I suspect that you have made my brain resemble a ticker-tape and I think it is time to return to the world where a conversation lasts longer than forty five words.  Sadly I suspect that my brain is not quite what it was six years ago and I am not getting any younger.  But I will keep in touch - just not every five minutes of every day!

Yours among billions

Karen