My Mother's Most Embarrassing Girl

Sometime last week, I resolved to live back to a normal life. Normal in a sense that I want to do things what I used to do like old fashioned-letter-writing , we call nowadays snail pace mail.

Since email became a fad, the only letters I pull out from my mailbox are bills. If not, reminder letter of overdue bills, bank statement, rental statement, solicitation letter from various organizations asking for donation, advertisement letters from realtors, and most annoyingly, letter-drop mail of unwarranted commercial ads promising this and that. In short, scam letters!

Once in a while on special occasions, I get Christmas, Easter, Birthday and Anniversary cards and some Congratulatory cards of some sort; affixed with real postage and stamped with postal mailing origin.

How come this is my topic for this blog?

(Oh by the way, I got so many unfinished write-ups waiting for my deadlock brain to function again so they can be posted. I apologize for that. I am talking to meself, I think).

Well, we have a church friend who in her incapacitated state is no longer coming to church but she gets some sermon DVD tapes to watch and listen to at home. From time to time, we send our flowers to cheer her up and she would take no delay in sending us a thank you letter card written in her own nice handwriting. Thankfully, she is not a computer literate and it is good of her for opting a snail pace post service so to speak and it does bring the bright sun shining down on us each time we receive a letter from her.

Actually, Post Office Service is not that bad in Australia. Snail pace letter if posted within the state can get to us the following day, and perhaps the longest would be three days if the recipients live in a remote area. They are served via a local store that serves as a Post Office outlet. It's kind of mixed-business incorporated with Postal Mail Service.

Since I have the knack of making my story long, I thought one day of sending a handwritten letter to this church friend of ours with one thing in mind, to cheer her up as she is at home on her own while the hubby and sons are away to work.

Yeah, it has been ages that I haven't written letters to people close to my heart though I send occasional postcards to people I made friends in the blogworld where you guys are commenting. Yes, right here in the Blogger world called blogspot dot com. One of my active commenters who answers to the name of Arkansas Patti has been one of the recipients.

She did not hesitate to send me her postal address when I offered her to send one. Thanks for your bravery dear Madam. I can smile at the thought of my boldness which you willingly relented. I don't blame others for being skeptical knowing the scams going around in this world. And mind you, it can be real scary to post personal information on the net. But there's always a place called safety net. So I bank on that. Hence, I do not have reservation asking.

I give this blog a title "My Mother's Most Embarrassing Girl". And that's me. This story is correlated to a letter-writing I sent to this church friend of mine.

Them days, as the old Ozzies would say, them days when I was young and in my teens probably I was about 16 years old and temporarily out of school... I went frenzy with letter writing as a hobby.

In those days, we lived in a very boring place and within the parameter of the military camp. I was a 'meatcan and canteencup' daughter. The camp and military houses were located on top of the hill and the town was just below us, where we do our shopping but only on market days like MWF. That stands for Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Outside these days, the whole town is dead! Virtually dead!

To go downtown and back, we descend and ascend by a steep long steps! Imagine what it's like during rainy days. Slippery? You bet!

One day, my dear mother complained to me to stop sending letters because it made her bankrupt. Believe it or not, I mailed a maximum of a dozen or more letters each market day! No, am not exaggerating!

Well, I could not go to a weekend dance and was not allowed to go with flirty girls. So, what would I do? Housework like cleaning, washing and cooking and without fun can be as tedious and monotonous as anything else done in a never changing routine. And a teenager like me needed some outlet. Being the eldest, I was being watched by too many eagle eyes. Not a good environment to keep one's sanity in place. So there should be something else besides reading. Reading the Bible and sneaking some magazines. Even in our reading, we were closely monitored as to what materials we were reading.

No community spirit to share such as sports either like softball or jumping rope and volleyball though I have never been a keen volleyball player. At school, they pumped the ball too hard and it's very painful for me to wallop.

So there was no hanky panky a teenager like me could do. In them days, I was not cheeky but I learned the trade one day. Listen to this story!

I told you that my mother forbade me not to send letters anymore as it made her bankrupt right? Well, it did not stop me from writing letters.

One market day, I sneaked out of the house. I went downtown all by myself and let no one knew.

Guess where I went?

I went to the town Post Office. Immediately, I noticed the handsome Post Master approached me with a smile soon as he saw me coming! He grabbed a bundle from a pile and handed me a handful of letters tied up with a string as in my favorite things, all addressed to me. That tickled me pink! And this Post Master seemed looking so pleased to see me there posting letters in person when normally, it was my mother's job or business. Huh?

I told the Post Master without reservation and I really didn't know why suddenly I did not feel shy. I told him "Manong, my mother got no money and I have letters here to be mailed." My feelings then was pure innocence that I never felt my face red at all or the blood came rushing up to my face to make me blush. Haha I spoke as if it was natural for me to tell him what I told him.

He reached out for my letters and placed postage on them, stamped them and said, "there you go. You can go home now". Of course, I thanked him and soon as I turned around, that was when I felt embarrassed for I realized late of what I had done.

I went home with nobody taking noticed of my abrupt absence. Went to my little room and read all the letters I received that day.

Later, I told my mother of what happened earlier on and even shared the letters for her to read. There never was any secret between me and my parents even with my siblings. Besides, there was no letter coming from the opposite sex. So, it was okay!

My mother, if she could only collapse in front of me, she would! But she found it so unbecoming for a daughter, her daughter like me, to do such a thing! She really was embarrassed but speechless!

Oh well, that afternoon, when she saw the Post Master in our yard, as we were very close neighbours; my mother did not waste time telling the man how embarrassed she was with my undue action. The Post Master smiled (he really was a very sweet person and always smiling and also most handsome, shhhh...he was my crush actually) and calmly assured my mother not to feel embarrassed of what I had done that day.

He told my mother that he'd rather prefer to see teenagers like me doing intellectual thing like letter writing than loitering around the street. We only have one street in our compound by the way, so everyone could see what people were up to.

Boy! that calm assurance never appeased my mother's embarrassment. She did not belt me though. She only pleaded to me not to do it again. It was such a relief that I did not get a homily!

I was pretty sure she told my father about it. But he didn't punish me either. This is just one of my cherished memories as a growing teenager!

Till her death, I wasn't sure if that incident was imprinted in my dear mother's memory. Parents should have recollection of what their children did, don't they? Because I can still very much remember with my own girls.

Funny memory indeed for me. Glad I still remember some part of my growing up years. As to my friend, yes, my letter truly cheered her up. She was laughing while she shared my story to her masculine family when they got back home from work.

You can make a difference making someone cheerful and happy by sending them a funny letter or even if it is not funny. Letter writing is really fun.

My friend in New Zealand loves it when she gets letter from the mailbox, not email. Which reminds me, I will write her again now that she is back from her overseas trip.



Cheers!