Welcome to one letter UP!
I was inspired to start this blog in 2018, after my husband and I moved from a two story house to a one level condominium. About to fully retire from a career as a registered dietitian, I was also winding down my consultant job at an adult day care center.
Moving and downsizing takes a while to recover from. But once the dust settled – so to speak – I had the time (and energy) to turn my attention to one of my favorite pursuits…writing. As well as discovering a new passion – macro photography.
And why was I inspired?…
The nightly news shows it every time: flooded out neighborhoods, the charred remains of a home with its surviving chimney, homes swept away and covered with mud. What do people return looking for first amid the destruction after loved ones are accounted for? What do they frantically, desperately, sift through the rubble searching for?
It’s the photographs, the letters; the pieces of their lives that show where they came from. Who they loved. The personal. The private. The papers. The irreplaceable.
Their stories.
I am struck by that. Again and again. “Oh look!” they say with tears in their eyes…”We found it!” And they hold up smudged and torn wedding photos or a framed graduation diploma, now cracked – or a love letter still in its envelope. As if they had won a lottery. And in their minds, they did.
By the grace of God or whatever…I still have them. Photographs. Letters. Diaries. Journals. Plus scraps of paper with scribbled half sentence thoughts, ideas and observations. Some musty with age but intact and still legible. Modern day time travel? Perhaps. By default or design, I am the family archivist.
Letter by letter, word by word, image by image, in this blog…I work on honoring my small piece of history. It took place within the larger whole of the world around me as my world grew within.
From the age of 9 I felt the need to record what happened – in words and pictures. Now fully retired from career and parenting (well, one never really retires from parenting, but theoretically speaking…), I revisit and discuss and share with those who may – or may not – relate. But who knows…maybe I’ll eventually figure out why life worked out the way it did. Including why in heaven’s name I wrote down all the TV shows I watched.
There must be a reason why I kept track of so many details all those years.
And saved all of it.
Thanks for visiting one letter UP…my Diary 2.0.
I look forward to sharing with you.
Andrea
one letter UP ~ diary 2.0 