disappointing, after all the buildup

Remember the card from an old college friend that was sent to my mother's house? Well, she forwarded it to me, and I got it today. Being that sort of a person who tends to save good things for later, I even waited to open it until I'd have time to really sit down & enjoy reading what my friend J had to say.

It was a conventional store-bought Christmas card, to which he'd simply added "Merry Christmas! J----"

What a letdown. I guess maybe he didn't want to write a real letter not knowing if it would reach me. I'm 99% sure that he hasn't been sending such cards for the past 15 years and I just didn't know about it.

The card itself was kind of yellowing with age. Either he was cleaning out a stash of old Xmas cards (I've done that myself plenty of times) , or maybe he'd addressed it 10 years ago (the card's copyright was 1995) and just never mailed it? (Normally I wouldn't pay attention to such details, but with no text to interpret, this is what I have left to "read.")

Weird. I guess he's tossed the ball into my court, and now it's my turn to respond. So I've looked up his work email, and will write him a note. We'll see if I hear anything back...