Letters

I have always had something of a fascination with “old-school” methods of communication, from relatively recent things like e-mail to the original long-distance communication method: letters. I’m not really sure where this fascination comes from, since I am on the other hand also someone who likes modernity and technology a great deal, but maybe it is exactly the eccentricity or the effort involved that makes it have more of a personal feel that draws me to them.

Now, this does not mean that I have spent a great deal of time in the past writing letters or sending postcards, I think I sent a letter in elementary school once and since then nothing else really, but having my mother read some old letters that her mother and other older relatives had sent in their youth along with a general desire to explore this communication method made me start sending letters. I haven’t as of yet sent many, well two to be exact and only one has arrived so far, but the reception so far has been very positive, they noted it was very sweet and personal to receive something like that. I think it was a combination of choosing to send a handwritten letter instead of printed that contributed to that feeling, along with it being such a rare occurance in today’s society that it simply stands out.

One of the reasons that I have sent so few letters as of yet and and a problem I am discovering is, that for many people who would be the most suitable for this kind of communication on account of me not actually talking or chatting with them that much otherwise at the moment, I actually don’t have the address for. These are people whom I know rather well and have a decent amount to do with in the past and might even know where they live, just simply not what to write on an envelope so that it reaches them. I could, of course, simply ask them, but that would kind of spoil the surprise.

So, at the moment, it does at times feel a bit silly writing letters to someone I already at the very least chat with pretty much daily, though it does provide the opportunity to communicate in a different way about different things when writing something a bit more long form, and it is quite simply nice to have someone to write letters to since I do enjoy it, and perhaps it only being one person does make it a bit more special for the two of us.

Even then, I think this is something I want to expand upon in the future, probably start writing my parents in the summer since we don’t see each other quite as often then, and possibly other people once I find a fitting excuse or way to get their address without raising too much suspicion.