(TIWIKBSA) Romantic Long Distance Love Letters

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m not a big mushy person. That’s OK to be, right? I love my friends who are super thoughtful and caring, but I’m just not that way myself – even if I wish I were. This extends to my love life. Except occasionally, when I do something adorable, like write a bunch of long distance love letters to Kristofer before I head off to London. So today’s 14 for the 14th won’t be glamorous, but I think we can agree this is the kind of gift significant others want more. A couple months before leaving, I came across a popular Pinterest pin: a bunch of letters as a first anniversary gift (from another Lauren)! I immediately thought of Kristofer, and resolved to write him one for each week I’d be gone – if I felt like it. Yes, resolutions are clearly very highly prioritized in my life.

Sixteen letters for the weeks I’d be in London

Anyway, I wrote 16 letters based on the different moods, successes, or problems I thought Kristofer might be likely to face in the 4-ish months until I’d see him again.

The hardest part was probably finding 16 unique topics to discuss. Once I had a topic, it was pretty easy to find something to say. Except maybe for that ‘catch all’ letter. What do you write about when you’ve written about everything? At the time, Life Love Lauren hadn’t posted the different letters she’d written. She did, however, do that about just a week after I wrote these.

Topics of my long distance love letters:

• Read me tonight (introduction letter)
• Read me when you feel like procrastinating on homework
• This if for when you procrastinated anyway!
• Open me  when you begin to doubt you’ll complete our weekly fitness challenge
• Because you don’t feel like eating yo veggies
• This immersion therapy letter is for when work sux
• Laughs inside
• Read me when you are feeling angry
• For when you are feeling lonely
• Open when/if you feel too jealous
• That night you cannot sleep :)
• Inspiration
• Open me after a successful announcement/achievement!
• Make brownies first!
• Read me after a big show’s cliffhanger!
• Good week? Nothing “fitting”? Here’s one!

My favorite/most obnoxious one was a sheet of paper I colored with pink highlighter and cut into small triangles. The point was to make a mess of Kristofer when he opened it, but I ended up just making a mess of my work space. Try as I might, I couldn’t keep them all inside the envelope!

A couple examples of letters

Here are some pictures of what I put inside my long distance love letters. :) The one below is from “This if for when you procrastinated anyway!” I know this is probably when Kristofer always feels the worst, so I wanted to make sure he had a way to tackle the problem. I know he’s fully aware of how to complete his work, but sometimes we appreciate a little encouragement and (reminder that a game plan helps).

This one is from “Open me after a successful announcement/achievement!” Since I was writing these for the future, I had no idea what good news he would have! It probably would be something school/career related, but maybe it would just be getting positive feedback from a mentor (or even that he beat a video game!?). All the same, it was fun to get to be a part of the excitement, and even a little teasing! (When did Kristofer open this one? When he was invited to present alongside his professor at NASP (National Association of School Psychologists) – it’s mid February and I’m going with him to D.C. so I can see his presentation and so we can be touristy!)

All wrapped up beautifully (OK, with some bright pink string I found in a drawer that’s who-knows-how-old).

I don’t mean to brag (or do I?), but long distance love letters were a pretty great idea! It was fun for me to know which letter Kristofer had opened – I had taken a photo of each one and stored them on my laptop so I would be able to remember what I had written/what he was reading.