Day 15 - Write a Letter

This week, January 9-15th is national letter writing week. So, I decided to participate in this event. The art of letter writing is lost. People just don't do it anymore, myself included. I have become a slave to email and with teenagers, texting. It has been years since I sat down and wrote a letter to a loved one just because.

Next week, a very dear loved one of mine will receive a letter from me that came from my heart. With the exception of the extreme writers cramp it gave me, writing that letter felt good. It made me think of the days of my childhood when I would exchange letters with pen pals. I used to wait anxiously for the mail man, hoping that a letter would come in the mail for me that day. To this day I am excited when I see the mailman, I foolishly believe that a letter will be waiting for me in that day's delivery. But, it never arrives because people just don't write letters anymore. Why would someone write me a letter when I never do the same? Like I said, it is a lost art.

When my husband and I began dating he used to write me love letters. We started dating in high school so the letters I received from him never came in the mail, they were usually given to me in hall between classes. But, I saved all those letters, they remain in a wooden box in my closet. I rarely read them, I would bet it has been 5 years since I cracked that box open, but I feel good knowing they are there. Someday, my children will find those letters and will see how people used to communicate before email and texting. It saddens me to think that they will in all likelihood never exchange letters the way we used to exchange them, back in the day. For me that would be the 1980's and early 1990's. How I wish I would be one of those lucky finders of a treasure box full of love letters from a WWII soldier to his sweetheart during the war. Until that day, I think I will try to write at least 1 letter per month to someone I care about and send that letter via the old fashioned way, snail mail.