Ten Thousand Postcards

My Art Swap Collaboration Story: A Lesson I Learned About Love

I would miss no one — not in a cold or unloving way. I was going to be the kind of person who goes years without seeing a friend but then immediately clicks again as if no time had passed.

Having moved a few times, I decided years earlier to enjoy each place and person for that time and not live in the past when we were no longer together. I wouldn’t miss people because it was impossible for me to have everyone in one place at one time, so I would never be complete. There would always be someone I could miss.

But here I was, halfway across the world, running down foreign streets searching for stamps. Postcards were easy to find in tourist areas, but stamps required effort, problem solving and a fair amount of charades.

It hadn’t started that way. I arrived in Europe with two suitcases, the clothes on my back and an unknown future. Where I would be in a year or ten — still in Europe or back in Canada? The openness of my life was exhilarating and the possibilities added to my adventure.

I had a list of things to do and places to see. I was learning languages and trying new foods I had never heard of back home.

But when I approached each item on my list and stared up at the landmarks to take in the experience, I wasn’t seeing these monuments through my eyes — I was taking them in through my words. How would I describe this to him? How could I capture these buildings, those people, this feeling?

For the first time in my life, it wasn’t enough to take in everything around me. No matter what I saw or experienced, it felt incomplete because all I wanted to do was share it with him. But I wasn’t sad, I still shared my days with him.

I wasn’t going to mope while traveling the world, I would make more of this experience, not less, because I wanted him there. I recorded every feeling and scene with the care of if ten thousand people would read those words. I ran all day and wrote all night. I developed an especially small form of handwriting and wrote on every centimetre available.

I crossed off every point on that list alone, but I didn’t feel lonely. I was connected through a beating stream of postcards.

The mailman was busy that year. In seven months, I visited a dozen countries.

I sent him 100 postcards, give or take a dozen. He kept them all. We keep them in a box beside our bed.

I learned sometimes missing someone isn’t living in the past, but part of building your future.

This piece was written as part of an Art Swap collaboration, featuring artwork created by the very cool Stella J. McKenna.

To see my watercolour and ink artwork for Kayt Molina’s piece click here. You can read about this collaboration and all five writer’s stories here.