Thank you notes get a bad reputation. Writing a grandparent to thank them for $5 birthday cash. Writing a relative to thank them for an ugly sweater you’ll never wear.
Sometimes it’s more formal. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you for the interview.
Sometimes they’re disappointing. Thank you for your application, however…
The thank-you card is the “Have a great summer” of our adult lives. We write them to people we barely know or have lost touch with, and there’s no risk involved. Everyone knows exactly what is coming and what routine to follow. So it goes.
These notes are used after weddings, baby showers, birthdays or other occasions where we receive something material to be thankful for. We say thanks in person, but are also societally required to spend time and money on a small decorated card or a short email which our addressee will trash or delete after reading quickly. Yet we don’t as regularly write thank-you notes for the immaterial moments or experiences in our lives.
Thanks for teaching me well.
Thanks for supporting me and believing in me.
Thanks for laughing to show me it wasn’t that bad.
Thanks for being my friend.
Maybe these sentiments are too big in our hearts to fit on tiny stationary.
I see thank-you notes as more of an art. I don’t write them often, and they’re not short. You could call them thank-you letters. A one to two page description of everything I could be thankful for in the relationship, carefully written out (rarely if ever typed) and delivered by hand or postal service.
I gave one to my high school physics teacher as I was getting off the bus after a field trip. He was compassionate, patient, and genuinely loved teaching. I snuck another onto my drama teacher’s desk while she was out. She kept her sense of humor no matter what happened. I wrote one on the back of my philosophy exam sophomore year in college. I don’t like to stay around for the reading; it makes me feel like I’m on the spot.
I am always flustered, thanking people in person. I forget what I want to say, say things that have no bearing on the conversation, and am overall awkward. Writing my thanks lets me have more control. I can pick out words at my leisure, lingering to make sure they’re portraying the right tone and attitude. I can take up as much space as I want to, breaking past space limitations of post cards or stationary.
I think over all the experiences I have had with the person leading up to this thank-you. What are my strongest memories? My strongest feelings? What have I been holding back from saying to them while my heart begs me to sing it aloud? I write it all down, transcribing racing thoughts like I’m chasing my pen across the paper. I write multiple drafts, forever Sam Seaborne-ing a letter that was most likely fine the first time but still doesn’t sound right.
This is terrifying. Being honest with people is accepted to a degree, but telling them what you really think can go bad. Telling them what you think of them in a way that they can refer back to over and over again — that’s a legacy. I’m leaving a legacy of thank-you’s behind me as I move through life. It should be comforting. Instead I feel like I’ve trusted my secrets — my words — to a history which is not entirely clear. No one can ever know how they will be remembered.
I am usually meticulous about keeping records and copies of my work. Should a fire rage though my paper copies, my digital ones live on. Should a virus purge my data, paper remains unchanged by binary monsters. Not with thank-you’s. I send them out singularly, un-twinned, to live with their recipients alone. It’s insane to want to remember every word I’ve ever written, but I feel vulnerable not knowing what I’ve released into the universe. Who was I when I wrote those letters? I have journals stretching back 10+ years, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I know that in writing my letters, I was writing whatever felt best at the time. But people and motivations change, and we too often forget how much others have given to us so we can become better versions of ourselves.
I give these letters as gifts because I treasure words which I get as gifts. Written words mean more to me than almost anything else I receive. I’ve learned about the Love Languages, and different learning styles, and adapting to others’ needs can be hard for me. But words come easy. Words are a requirement for me, a gut punch which cannot be ignored. Human instinct is powerful, and it tells me to write, to be thankful. It tells me to take risks by narrowing my audience to one, and by not worrying about the reception.
