No, not letters as in the alphabet.  Letters as in e-mail text on actual paper.  With a pen.  Preferably a nice one.   

Several years ago, a bunch of my gal pals and I put together the perfect excuse for a party – we were writing letters.  To ourselves.  (Can you imagine that much estrogen in one room, at the same time, writing letters?  Complete with Mimosas?  It was GREAT FUN!)

I’m not sure where the idea came from, but it’s one that’s proven effective over the years.  Believe me, anything with testosterone disappeared each time we announced our plans.  🙂 

(Apollo’s the exception.  He’s cool.  He not only hung around, but provided lots of inspiration and a ton of encouragement!)

Besides an excuse to visit with gal pals, our letter writing party was an opportunity to provide ourselves with some quiet time.  Reflective time.  A chance to see where we are, where we want to go in the following year, and how we’d get there.  (Yeah, we do get serious every now and then.  Fortunately, it doesn’t last! 🙂 )

And so it was that a few of us again got together this past year.  Over glasses of wine, and a beautifully set table at a friend’s house, we laughed, we toasted, and we wrote.

Hopes.  Dreams.  Words of wisdom and encouragement.  We made promises and kept our secrets.  And we had a blast!

In a few months we’ll likely get together again – to read our letters.  Oh, we keep the contents pretty private, but we still manage to laugh out loud at some of our angst.

See, what I’ve learned is that, in the end, no matter how HUGE life seems, from the perspective of time, it all turns out okay.  And isn’t *that* something worth celebrating?

-Melia