Correspondence May 15, 1987 (greeting card)

I do not have the first piece of correspondence that my soon-to-be long distance relationship partner sent me. I don't even have the first bit of written correspondence that he sent me. What's that? You don't understand the difference between correspondence and "written correspondence"? Of course, you are confused. Normal people didn't do what we did back in the day.

The first piece of correspondence that I ever received from my future love was a cassette tape of him speaking to me for about an hour, possibly 90 minutes. Since I no longer have the tape, I do not know the length. I only knew that I was thoroughly unimpressed by him at the end of that time. I did reply on a tape of my own. My response was less than an hour and I did it because I felt obliged to reply to him out of a sense of courtesy and decency.

I haven't decided yet in this blog how far I'm going to go with revealing names. To protect the privacy of everyone involved, I'm censoring the names from any scans I put up and I'll refer to my partner as "T" and myself as "S" as those are the first letters of our names. At a later date, I may be less squeamish about such things, but this will do for now.

T responded to my tape rather quickly, but I wasn't really interested. I tossed his second set of tapes (because he sent two the second time around) aside and hoped he'd forget about me. He didn't. Around mid-May, my guess is shortly before the card I am scanning and posting here was sent, he sent me a letter asking politely if I'd gotten his tapes. I threw out that letter, but I did send this card in response:

Card front:

Card interior:

Transcription:

May 15, 1987

Dear T,
     Actually there are excuses and I'll probably bore you with them. Let me first apologize for not getting back to you in some way, shape, or form much earlier. The reality of the situation is that I haven't even had the opportunity to hear your tape, let alone respond to it. I did get your letter and read it.
     Ready for excuses? Work has been a true bitch (there's a lot of internal strife... my boss hates me and I had an anxiety attack on the job). My social life sucks, I'm having an identity crisis, and I went to Boston for a week in April. Now aren't you happy I laid all of that on you? I knew you'd be. Heh, heh, heh. And it's not even a soap opera, it's real.
     I promise, promise, promise (!) to try to get back to you ASAP.

Your pal,

S

*****

One part of that card was a bit of a fib. I was very busy, but I could have found the chance to listen to his tape had I made it a priority. I did have an identity crisis at that time (and, yes, I knew I was having one and why), and my boss was treating me horribly. I don't recall having an anxiety attack, and I think that what happened was more of a meltdown. This message was the calm before a storm emotionally, though my life seems to always be full of thunder and lightning psychologically speaking.