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Summer is Now Quite Past

Found by Kathleen Kyllo in in a used book

I found this love letter while I was in college and I’ve kept it for about ten years. When I found it I was already well rehearsed in love letters, having dated someone in New York for a year before moving out here from Wisconsin. We had a great time for a couple years and then moved on.

Over time, I’ve come to love the following lines for their resilience: “And the emptiness I feel in your absence hasn’t changed. I have learned not to occupy my time in dwelling on it, but it hasn’t gone away.”

Did she ever rewrite it? Was she writing for herself? Did her person visit? Who knows.

Comments

  1. Librarian in the Woodwork says:

    on December 20, 2012 at 9:05 am
    Do you suppose she came to see him even without him having finished and sent the letter?

    Seems nicely written, though.

    Or is it HER letter to HIM? (In which case he was in it just for the sex and did indeed show up without having received the letter.)

  2. Strange Biller says:

    on December 21, 2012 at 10:07 am
    Is the writer military or European? The format for the date seems to suggest one or the other.

  3. orinocowomble says:

    on December 21, 2012 at 10:52 am
    By the date format, handwriting, and use of certain turns of phrase such as “hullo” for Hello and “quite past”, I’d say yes, European.

  4. Bec says:

    on December 28, 2012 at 7:38 pm
    Wow! That looks exactly like MY handwriting! Did you find the letter in Wisconsin? I live in Wisconsin! I’ve started a multitude of letters expressing my yearnings myself. Don’t believe this could be mine, but wow, the handwriting is uncanny….

  5. Laura says:

    on February 17, 2013 at 8:29 pm
    It’s funny…When I read it, it was a guy writing to a girl. Lovely, nonetheless.

  6. Alessio says:

    on March 1, 2013 at 12:18 pm
    I don’t think he ever sent the letter…He continued another paragraph but never finished it.

  7. Old Lag says:

    on April 5, 2013 at 8:54 am
    The most baffling aspect is: why would s/he alienate his/her friends by making them wash dishes?