Laurabelle's Blog

I have a history of long-distance relationships.

My first real friendship was a LDR. I'm not sure why it worked, why we kept writing, other than that we shared a love of books and of words. I remember exclaiming to my mother early on about how much Emily and I had in common, but I also remember thinking later about how opposite we were and how we never would have been friends if we'd lived in the same place.

Emily and I started writing in the summer after fifth grade, when we were 11. I have every letter she ever wrote to me, as well as many that I wrote to her. Our letters are a record of our friendship. I used to read them over sometimes, from the beginning, but I haven't done so in a long time, not since before she died. In a way I am luckier than Emily's local friends, because I still have as much of Emily as I ever did, in her letters. As my retrospective spectacles become rosier, I have the luxury of reading her again, as ink and paper have preserved her.

I'm taking the liberty of reproducing one of Emily's poems here, as it appears on her webpage, because it resonates with me:

time takes a pause
to rest her feet
and paint her nails
and we have a few drinks
and a few laughs
and she picks up her skirts
and trudges on
and i sit by the side of the road
with my feet in the mud
and grow old