Month of May Photo Challenge. Day 29: A Letter

After we met and started dating in college, Tung and I would often write love letters to each other. He figured out that a way to a writer's heart was through a pen and paper. Since we had different majors at San Jose State, Tung would frequent the Engineering Building. The English Department doesn't have a dedicated building like a lot of other majors, so we were orphaned nomads squatting the classrooms of whichever building became available. Tung and I would hardly see each other from our hectic class schedules but for the times we resolved to meet in the communal Student Union or Clark Library.

We'd pass letters after walking each other to class, stick them on each other's car windshield wipers, write notes back and forth at the library. Those were the days when we were living on parttime student wages, split a power-sized Jamba Juice on payday, and dreamed of graduating and owning a house together.

One summer, Tung went with his family back to Viet Nam for three weeks, and it was the first and only time in our relationship that we had to be that far from each other for that long. We used to have nightly phone conversations, and after we hung up, I sat late into the night writing him a 20-page letter the week before his flight to give to him at his departure. In the days before the popularity of smartphones and abundant Internet cafes, it was a way to "hear from" me. In Viet Nam, Tung would spend the hours of insomnia from the time adjustment scribbling out his responses to my letter and telling me about his trip, to be given to me upon his return.

Over a decade later, I still have all our love letters in a binder. We don't write to each other anymore as we spend so much time together, waking up to each other, going to sleep at the same time. It's sappy, but I still keep them for memories, and as a reminder of how we coped with being apart.