The lost art of passing notes

Typical paper folding mastery (and encouraging words) of a 90s girl note.

In the 90s, before cell phones ruled our lives, there was only one true queen: pen and paper. And if you were a school-aged girl, these tools weren’t just for taking notes in class - they were for writing notes to each other. Constantly. Relentlessly. Passionately.

We spent every spare minute of our downtime crafting these masterpieces, decorating them with gel pens, doodles, bubble letters, and folding them into intricate origami shapes that we swore reflected our personalities. (A basic half-then-half fold? Please. We had standards.)

And let’s be clear, these weren’t just “hey what’s up” scraps of paper. Sure, sometimes you needed a quick call-and-response note to sort out the day’s drama before choir class, but most of these were full essays, complete with multiple paragraphs about what was on our minds, who was annoying us, our after-school plans, and extremely detailed play-by-plays of any interactions with our crushes of the week. (No detail was too small. If said crush breathed near us, it was going in the note.)

It’s funny what you forget as you get older. For me, these notes were one of those lost memories - until this past weekend, when my mom handed me a giant box she found while cleaning out my childhood closet. And there they were, hundreds of notes from school friends, camp friends, pen pals, and even the daughter of my mom’s friends across the country. It turns out, I was basically running my own analog Substack, one sheet of college-ruled paper at a time.

What really hit me was realizing that, for every note in that box, there was an assumed response from me, equally long, equally decorated, equally dramatic. I’ve always said I’m not much of a “journaler,” but clearly, I was out here processing my feelings, dreams, insecurities, and heartbreaks on a daily basis as a teen - I just happened to do it with an audience.

Then cell phones came along. And just like that, the note passing stopped. But without this designated outlet for our feelings, where would they go? Eventually, it began to seem like if our emotional moments didn’t fit neatly into an AIM away message, or later, a 140-character tweet, they were taking up too much space.

Decades later, we often feel like we still haven’t found a place big enough for us. So my friends, let’s not forget the space we used to take up with each other. Luxurious, unhurried space. How we held each other’s fears and frustrations so no one had to hold them alone. How we rallied to solve problems, study for tests, and determine which people were worth our time (and which ones were SO not).

Sure, we were young, and the problems were small and (let’s be real) sometimes absurd. But through those folded notes, we practiced what it meant to be there for each other. To pay attention to each other’s stories. To rally together when one of us was falling apart, even if it was just because he didn’t say “hi” in the hallway.

The best part? Several of the people who wrote these notes are still some of my best friends today. Is it any wonder? Growing up, we spent hundreds of hours writing to each other and thinking about each other - what would make each other laugh, cry, or feel brave enough to try out for the school musical or have the tough conversation. We took the time to put our hearts on paper, and in doing so, we quietly built the foundation for friendships that would last.

I don’t know, maybe we should all pass a note to a friend today. Just to say, “Hey, I’m here. You’re not alone.” Maybe we don’t need the origami folds (though I won’t stop you). Maybe it’s a text, a voice note, or a letter in the mail. Because even as adults, we still need each other to help carry the weight of our stories. We need each other to remind us we’re loved, we’re seen, and we don’t have to figure things out alone.

The world often tells us to keep it together, to keep it short, to keep it moving. But what if we gave ourselves permission to slow down and share what’s really on our hearts? To say, “This is what’s hard right now,” or “This is what I’m hoping for,” or “This is what made me laugh so hard I almost cried.” What if we created a little more space for each other’s stories, for the small moments and the big ones, and for the honest messiness of being human?

These funny, adorable, little childhood notes reminded me of a big lesson - we were never meant to do this alone. Let’s recommit to each other that we still hold space, and that even now, there is room for our messy, mundane, everyday stories to continue to unfold together.

Signing off,

💗 GTG TTFN LYLAS 💗