Status: Active; some quick updates and some slow.
So Long, Marianne.
I've Got a Feeling I Don't Want to Know.
Will left 2 weeks later, on the 22nd. Ha. 2 days before Christmas! He hardly said anything to me in those two weeks and we barely saw each other, with him packing or training or going down to the station to talk to some of the officers. I stood with his mother at the train station, seeing him off. His mother was holding up better than I was; her mouth was in a straight line, pressing a handkerchief to her lipstick stained lips. Meanwhile I was in hysterics; ruining the image of “that calm and quiet girl” that everyone from town thought I was.
In my own stubbornness I told all of Will and I’s mutual friends that anyone who needed to tell him anything would have to tell me first and I would put it in my letters. I wanted them all to be from me. The first letter was horrible. Everyone crowded around me in a booth in Shakers, telling me what they wanted to be put in, what stories what news and I took so many pauses to crack my wrists. Even though it was bad, it got the point across that we all needed to keep in touch.
Whenever Will wrote back, I would read it first and keep in mind anything important that I needed to tell him. Then I’d round up the troops and we went to Shakers and I read them the replies and we would get lost in writing again. Soon into ’42 and ’43 the letters started coming later and later, but as long as they were still coming I was fine.
Soon a lot of our friends stopped coming; they were moving on with their lives, despite the times, getting married, getting together, having children, moving out until it was just my stories that Will was reading. I don’t think he minded too much. We grew a close-but-far-away relationship, now that it was just me writing. It was comforting to know that someone was always ready to listen (or read!).
We were a comfort to each other, but indirectly. I complained to Will about my crumbling relationships and how sucky my last year of High School was. Since Will already graduated two years earlier, he would often tell me to just pull through and it would all be worth it in the end. Will told me about what it was like in the camps and training and fighting; some of his stories made me sick to my stomach, and when I told him he freaked out and apologized, like, 20 times but I told him not to worry.
Our letters obviously didn’t get to each other the moment our crises were going on, but there was still a shield of comfort in knowing that someone in the world cared about your words and feelings.
I graduated High School in June of 1943. I wanted to go to college, but my parents couldn’t afford it and it’s not like I had the money. I took a job as a nurse for wounded soldiers, each one who came in reminding me of the one person who was on my mind all the time. Where was he? What was he doing right now? I hadn’t gotten a letter in months and it was worrying me.
And if something had happened, God forbid, his mother would have told me right?
Right?
In my own stubbornness I told all of Will and I’s mutual friends that anyone who needed to tell him anything would have to tell me first and I would put it in my letters. I wanted them all to be from me. The first letter was horrible. Everyone crowded around me in a booth in Shakers, telling me what they wanted to be put in, what stories what news and I took so many pauses to crack my wrists. Even though it was bad, it got the point across that we all needed to keep in touch.
Whenever Will wrote back, I would read it first and keep in mind anything important that I needed to tell him. Then I’d round up the troops and we went to Shakers and I read them the replies and we would get lost in writing again. Soon into ’42 and ’43 the letters started coming later and later, but as long as they were still coming I was fine.
Soon a lot of our friends stopped coming; they were moving on with their lives, despite the times, getting married, getting together, having children, moving out until it was just my stories that Will was reading. I don’t think he minded too much. We grew a close-but-far-away relationship, now that it was just me writing. It was comforting to know that someone was always ready to listen (or read!).
We were a comfort to each other, but indirectly. I complained to Will about my crumbling relationships and how sucky my last year of High School was. Since Will already graduated two years earlier, he would often tell me to just pull through and it would all be worth it in the end. Will told me about what it was like in the camps and training and fighting; some of his stories made me sick to my stomach, and when I told him he freaked out and apologized, like, 20 times but I told him not to worry.
Our letters obviously didn’t get to each other the moment our crises were going on, but there was still a shield of comfort in knowing that someone in the world cared about your words and feelings.
I graduated High School in June of 1943. I wanted to go to college, but my parents couldn’t afford it and it’s not like I had the money. I took a job as a nurse for wounded soldiers, each one who came in reminding me of the one person who was on my mind all the time. Where was he? What was he doing right now? I hadn’t gotten a letter in months and it was worrying me.
And if something had happened, God forbid, his mother would have told me right?
Right?
♠ ♠ ♠
I don't particularly like this one. Filler, next one will be better I swear!