I'm Back! Thoughts on Letter Writing...

Well it's been an unacceptably long time I'm afraid--and about a million things have happened since I last blogged including a Bachelor's degree, marriage, a cross-country move, and another trip to Europe (hooray!)--not to mention an utterly glorious election (!). I won't bore you with details of the fabulous past three years--those of you who need to know already do. Suffice it to say that grad school is expensive and time consuming though we hear that it's worth it. I'm looking forward to giving it a go myself when my husband has finished his turn in two years. Anyone who has ideas for my grad degree please post btw--I'm having the worst time deciding between something in Education, American Literature, or a Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry.

Now--to business! For the past few months I have been corresponding with two former room mates currently serving missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It had been a while since I had written letters on such a regular basis and I've found that I very much missed this intimate yet removed form of communication. There is something very moving about holding a hand-written missive in your hand--you really feel like you have a part of that person with you and it isn't gone in an instant like a text or instant message or Facebook post--it is tangible and all yours. Growing up, my father was in the Air Force and we moved around a bit. I used to write letters consistently to my friends whose families were stationed elsewhere. I remember the day that I first sent an email to one of these friends on the family account--I was astounded by how fast it was, but looking back on it I remember mixed with the wonder was the inability to write quite the same way as I had formerly. Email just wasn't the same thing and it looked and felt sterile to me.

Now, just so I'm not misunderstood, I LOVE my email and work especially would be far more drudgerous without it (I think all form letters should be emails, for example--we kill trees for this?), but I miss the intimacy of handwriting and that physical representation of a loved one far away--that rush of feeling you get when you hear the voice of someone you love on the phone--that's what I feel when I see a familiar script. That rush of emotions is something that you just don't get from these evenly spaced lines.

So every now and again, send someone a nice handwritten letter. Heck, go crazy and use some cute stationary too. You just might make their day.

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Moms (especially mine), you are completely and utterly fabulous--thanks for putting up with all of us :).