Letter One

To my dearest Keru


Today, you embarked on a journey that will last four months, somewhere around over one hundred days, and is 11,000 miles away. By my calculations, you're roughly thirteen and a half hours into your flight, if you left at 12.

I'm glad I got to spend Tuesday with you, and that I woke up enough this morning (technically yesterday morning) to text you goodbye. Your farewell text is locked in my phone, and shall remain there for the foreseeable future.

I've been thinking quite a bit ( an occasionally dangerous practice for me), and I ultimately decided to boot up the Letters to Keru blog.

When I went to college for my freshman year, I was always wonderfully surprised by letters that you took the time to write and mail to me. I was troubled while at college, but that's no excuse for neglecting writing you back, like I properly should have.

Since we went off to college, you and I have slowly drifted apart in many ways. You have flourished at your college (I mean look at you, you're almost to China!) and as a young woman, and I am so proud of you as a friend, and as your sister. I have stagnated and struggled, but am getting there.

Our high school years were amazing, and I could never regret being joined with you at the hip for those two wonderful years. I can regret us not getting together more, but that happens, right?

What really makes up for our separation over the semesters is that as soon as we are back together again, even for a couple of hours, we're very much on the same wavelength. Finishing each other's thoughts and sentences like we used to, grinning at something we both saw on the Internet, and swapping secret smiles when your grandmother pulls out a Reader's Digest from seemingly nowhere.

No matter what distance has separated us, or the amount of time, you have always been my amazingly, fantastically loving, supportive sister. You never hesitate to give me advice, to try and help me find my way, and I love you so damned much for it.

So here is what I am proposing.
I will write you a letter a day, a week, whatever I can manage. You may be 11,000 miles away, but that doesn't mean you're gone forever! When you come back, I will link you to these letters, or print them out, or whatever. There will be no obligation to read them, but I will be thinking of you, just as you thought of me when I went away to college for the first time.

No matter where I'm at in four months, no matter where you're at in four months, we will always be sisters. Always an email away, always a hug at the end of a visit or a 1 AM trip to IHOP.

I love you!

-Roo