Signed, Sealed...Undelivered

Chapter 2: Letter Writing - Lytes' Style

"Oh.my.gosh!" I blurted out.

"I can't believe I still have this?!"  I shook my head and chuckled.

I found this unsent "love letter" in my stack of keepsakes. It was a beautiful Saturday morning. I woke up early so I can get through to most of my stuff, if not all of them, today. I aim for the latter though, so I told myself that I shouldn't linger long on deciding whether to keep or let go of my possessions. I might not have room in our new place. Plus, I've learned recently that if I plan to acquire new things, I have to make room for it by putting away my old and outdated stuff.

This letter was inside a pink plastic envelope tucked at the bottom of my "arts box". My arts box is where I put my finished "creations", majority cutouts of my name, drawings, collage of pictures and words from magazines; and unused materials - colored paper, specialty paper and scented stationeries. I had three plastic envelopes in it too – one pink, one blue and one green. The correspondences with my best friend were placed in the green bag. I had kept all the letters I got from friends since grade school through college for different occasions – Birthdays, Christmas, Valentines, Graduation, etc. - in the blue container. While the pink one housed the poems I made, song lyrics from friends and "special" letters...like this one. The letter was folded simply in half placed inside a scented sky blue letter envelope. It was sealed by a red round sticker. Along with the letter I found 5 pages of drafts.

"Whoa! I made drafts for this? And I kept them?!"

I could not help but feel foolish about my discovery. I read through each version of the draft. Each one was unfinished because I was trying to perfect my handwriting. I was holding one page that was almost done until I misspelled a word.

There was the draft with the most erasure and editing done, "So, this was the original version. I'm such a perfectionist!" I realized.

"When did I write this?" I tried to recall the day. But what I could vividly remember was the face of the guy whom this letter was for.

(Writing...)

It was a week before Mike's last day at work. He initially requested to be relocated to another branch of the bank because he was having a hard time travelling to work every day. His father passed away two months ago and his mother is finding it difficult to cope with the loss. Immediately after his father's death, they moved to Dasmarinas, Cavite – to his father's dream house. Mike's older sisters were both married and residing someplace else. His two younger siblings were both in college – one was a graduating Civil Engineering student and their youngest was a freshman taking up Nursing. Being single and older of the 3 remaining kids living with their parents, he felt that the responsibility to watch over the rest of the family lies on him. Mike's relocation request was denied, only because there were no vacancies in the branches near his new residence. Good thing, he found a new employer.

I bought a specialty paper, a scented envelope and a new colored pen. I had these prepared on my desk. I usually play music when I'm in my "writing zone", but not this time. I wanted no distractions. I wanted to be able to pour my heart out in this letter. I want it written as how I'll say it to him face-to-face.

My heart was beating fast and the words were flowing freely onto the paper. I started with the words neatly written until it got uncontrollable that I lost the consistency and some words were illegible. My hand seemed to have a life of its own and jots down everything my heart says. I decided to make the first one a draft then just write a better version. It took me 5 pages to get an acceptable output – I was aiming for a well handwritten letter, where each word gets across clearly.

"This is it!" I held the letter with both hands and made a final run through. I was satisfied with what I wrote. I folded the letter crosswise, placed it in the envelope and sealed it with a red round sticker. I carefully wrote Mike's name on the envelope face.  

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.