Flashes of Panic

I hope nobody was holding their breath waiting for a holiday card from me. I think it’s time I accepted that the years I actually manage to get cards in the mail are more the exception than the rule; it’s happened maybe once or twice in the past decade.

It’s only receiving cards that makes me feel at all guilty about it. With the exception of my parents, the people I get paper cards from tend to be people I see only a few times in a given year, if at all; one arrived today from a member of a small training group I used to run with once or twice a month in DC, nearly five years ago. I last saw him in Birmingham, Alabama, as we dashed around downtown watching the men’s Olympic Marathon Trials. I can’t say that much of his letter meant much to me (I’m not sure I ever met his wife, for instance) but relatively speaking, he’s maintaining our connection, and I’m the mute one. That’s the pattern.

I’m hemmed in by the feeling that if I just try to email everyone, it’s too impersonal, but the idea of hunting up postal addresses and writing is the barrier (well, one of them) that keeps actual paper from heading out. The deadline is tedious, too. Maybe I should just blow off the deadline, get some season-neutral cards, and send everyone a card in, say, February, when we could all use the pick-up anyway.

I did have a first this year: an e-card from someone I (previously) knew only by an online “handle.” (You know who you are.) It did take some thinking to suss out the connection and recognize that it wasn’t utterly random mail.

In the spirit of giving, though, I may just not post very much over the holiday weekend, unless something absolutely begs to be written up. I wouldn’t want you all to come back from the long weekend and be too far behind on your weblog reading.

Now Playing: Comedown from Magician Among The Spirits by The Church