How to sign off - various thoughts.

I write. I write letters to friends, and to acquaintances, and to complete and total strangers. Sometimes they're formal letters, which is dead easy, (Yours sincerely/faithfully) but usually they're not.

Now most of the time I don't have an issue with finishing it. Hugs if it's someone I would hug in person, with variations on the fact (Love and hugs or Hugs and kisses), and of course the prevailing sentiment works well: Thinking of all of you at the moment to an acquaintance going through a rough time, or Missing you heaps to someone who's moved away and you haven't seen them in ages. Then to some special friends, Fluffy-Bounce! is always appropriate.

And yes, I always try and get my own personality through and be personal when writing. It's my voice, after all, and I really want that to come across. Or it's something in a story I'm writing, and I want to hit just the right note with the communication between two or more characters.

And being Aspie doesn't help - I've been known to hit exactly the wrongest note from time to time :-P

So, out of curiousity, what sort of ways would people sign off letters in the following circumstances?

1) A letter to an author you admire, who you've met once at a convention, and have had an occasional correspondence to date, but they've hit a really rough spot and you want them to know that you're not just being polite - you really care about what's happening to them.

2) A very awkward letter to someone you were best friends with many years ago, but now that their life has changed incredibly for the worse, (drugs, or something as bad), you're trying to turn down their "business opportunity" they want you to be part of.

3) A letter sent as a relationship starts between two people, where they're both level-headed enough to realise they're not in love yet, but they do really like each other very much and are hoping for more.

I will accept serious or silly submissions :-)

When I was a kid, I was bullied.

And I can hear so many of my friends right now nodding and saying "Yeah, me too." I think that's why a lot of us have become friends - because we're the different ones, the other ones, those ones - which meant that we're not outsiders, we're our own group.

But it took me years to find you.

This is a video called Bullies called him Pork Chop. I wish I could sit my mum down to watch it. I wish I could get her to understand how much that stuff hurt, because she was (and is) of the school that "you should just reply with sticks and stones may break my bones...".

Sometimes I have trouble finding the words to explain things to people. Then I'm lucky enough that someone else has made the words for me.

Have tissues ready. And a kitten to cuddle. You may need it.