An Open Letter To Judy Blume
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Dear friend (or so it seems),
Judy, Mrs. Blume, author, woman, mother, wife, mentor. You are all those things, but the inspiration you are, transcends this list. Of course, this list is not all that you are either. There are so many words to write to you, yet none of them want to flow. Let me start with an antidote that happened in 2003. I was visiting your website as I had so many times before, I left a message on your guestbook and you wrote me back! You wrote me an email back! I still have that email saved (see below).
Dear Lindsey,Thanks so much for your warm note. I’m touched by how well you remember mybooks. Wish there were time for a longer, more thoughtful response, butI’m overwhelmed right now and trying (desperately!) to find the quiet timenecessary to write. Hope you’ll understand. Readers like you have made mycareer, and I can never thank you enough.Come back and visit my website again. Hope to get up some new info soon!Love,Judy
With that being shared, you need to know the impact that you’ve had on my life. My aspirations as an author are due to you and your classic, timeless way of writing. Your books have followed me through many milestones in my life, and each time I read them, there is a new lesson to learn. As a young girl I willed my period to start because of books like “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.” I imagined having best friends like the girls in, “Just As Long As We’re Together.” As I got older, I wanted a back brace like “Deenie,” and the love story of “Forever,” mirrored my first major relationship in many ways. I also read “Wifey” and “Smart Women” longing for the day that I would be an adult and have such fabulous issues as the women in those stories, they seemed so secret and dirty. I felt like I was getting away with something as I entered these women’s personal lives not realizing that is what they were there for. When “Summer Sisters” was released, I devoured the pages, comparing and contrasting my childhood friendships, wishing they were more like Vix and Caitlin’s dynamic.
It seemed that the wait was everlasting until your latest release, which was written in your style, but had a very eery plot that surprised me, that had me terrified on many occasion. I had to remind myself, who wrote the book and what book I was reading. “In The Unlikely Event,” was an instant hit for me. I wonder how you managed to balance your life and writing. I struggle to find the time for everything I want to do and still care for my family, but with your resume I know it’s possible. I keep pushing, and the image of you writing when you could fit it in, helps me to keep pushing and fitting writing in when I can after work, family and domestic duties, homework, ETC.
Judy Blume, your approach to sex and censorship is realistic and not taboo. You touch on subjects that are so hush-hush even today. Periods, masturbation, sexual relationships, depression, divorce and death have all had some sort of cameo in one or another of your books and you make the scenarios so relateable. In times when I wondered who I was, your books were there. When I was bored, your books were there. As an aspiring author, your books are there. For comfort, your books are there. Now that I have kids I am so excited to push those classics onto them and into their hearts, just as they have been in mine since childhood.
Judy, I call you a friend, because your face is familiar and smiling in your photos and your words are like familial ties that help hold me to my goals. I find solace in your books even at 36 years old, I can still read even the children’s books you’ve written and associate a fond memory with that book. You have influenced my life and given me so many words to love and stories to relate to. I will always look to your books as staples in my life, I appreciate your style, authorship, and timelessness. I am forever a fan.
Thank you, a lifetime reader and fan,
Lindsey
