a box of memories

Another week went by and here I am, trying to finish up my second short story. I admit I’ve got lazy for the second time. Today is the deadline but I haven’t even written anything. Hopefully I can finish it by the end of the day.

Last night YF decided to clean the cupboard because we got plaster bagworm invasion (okay, it’s not that bad, sometimes one or two can be seen hanging or sticking onto the wall). They are super gross. While he was cleaning, I found a box full of letters from my penpals. I used to have many penpals from all over the world before I found Postcrossing and started sending postcards instead. We exchanged letters, sometime gifts or Christmas cards. But slowly the letter stopped, either the letters lost on the way or we just decided not to continue. Now I only have one penpal from England and we still send each other cards or gifts. 

Then I saw a bunch of envelopes tied together. They were from the time I was still active in church organisation. When I was in high school, I joined a church organisation for youth called Antiokhia. Every year we would have what we called Weekend to recruit new members for the organisation. After I became a member, I continued to serve as the team member for the following Weekend until it eventually stopped because we couldn’t recruit any new members to join. It was after five years I joined. Every Weekend, we would ask everybody leave a note to each other, be it a thank you note, congratulations note or any nice words. I read every note from every Weekend I attended. I still remember some people, but most of them I have already forgotten how they looked like. Some notes brought back certain memories of what happened during that particular year. The first time I joined, most of the notes I received was telling me that I was too quiet and that I need to speak up more often. The following year, the notes I received were mostly thank you notes for helping out as a team member and they all commented that I was better, I talked more and not as shy as before. The last envelope was the last Weekend before a lot of internal matters happened; members no longer get along with each other, lack of commitments, not enough team members to help for the Weekend, which led to not enough publicity to the youth in the church so not enough people to sign up for the Weekend to make it happen. 

It really broke my heart because we were like a family, then life happened. We all got on with our lives and it seemed like there was no time to gather and do things together. It was rather a painful memory, to be honest, deep down I know it was bound to happen. But I do hope one day I will be able to contribute something back to the organisation.

Anyway, I better start writing my short story.