Isn't Life Grand, Sometimes

I have always written - as a child, a teenager, and as an adult. The reasons for writing were many and varied. As a child I wrote long, rambling essays. As a teenager I wrote my diary every night. Then I met my husband while on holiday in Italy and, as we lived 250 miles apart, we wrote regularly - my letters long and detailed, his short and almost copies of each other. We married, and I moved to his home town so I wrote weekly to my parents and my beloved Grandfather. Usually these would be letters of 9 or 10 pages. I thought this was “normal” and so I continued. I wrote when I was happy or sad or angry. Sometimes the paper would be placed secretly in a drawer, or ripped up and consigned immediately to the bin. “Whatever” – I wrote. I almost always began my 10 page letters with “Just a few lines…” So I have put together “just a few lines”, written when I was happy or sad or angry only this time I did not consign them to the bin.