To:

You, my reader. This is to you, and you should know something. Know that we have the power to effect people's lives in small ways. Letters are my meditation, my way to pause and release. This is a small collection of some of my favorites (not to say that I don't love, cherish, and keep every other letter) from the past four years. It will take some time to catch up to real-time, so bare with me.

These have each been set aside for a specific reason, for what the letter did or does to me, for how much it made an impact at the time, most often without the sender’s awareness. Some just make my heart ache to look at, some still make me cry, some I had forgotten about, some I will never let go of. In order to post them here, I have had to go back through each letter; take them from their jacket envelopes, pick back through their organs, and make sure the sender's privacy is respected by editing out names, very personal confessions, or anything that may upset them.

I don't send letters to receive them so that I can share, but some of these are too good not to. Mostly this is a record of reflection, a way to understand where I was and where I am now, and a small step to making them last in case any were to be damaged. I hope you get something from this collection; there are so many people with such incredible things to say that sometimes can't be said any other way than in their own writing. At the very least, I hope you are charmed, interested, or entertained-- affected.

Yours,

a