Foreign Correspondence

It's been a while since I've found time to post on here, but I'm back with some thoughts on letter-writing. :) It’s a shame that people don’t put the same amount of time and care into correspondence as they did in the past. I sort of miss the days when people wrote letters back and forth to each other. I do still send lots of birthday and holiday cards, but admittedly, it’s much faster and easier to keep in touch on a regular basis with people through email. What I’m noticing lately is that people are doing so much more communicating via text messaging. I agree that it has its benefits, but what I don’t like is when I take the time to craft a lengthy email to someone and then I get a brief response back from their smartphone. It makes me wonder if they really soaked up all of the words, thoughts, and sentiments that I took the time to put together just for them.

I sometimes reminisce fondly of that intoxicating frame of mind from many years ago when I would eagerly await a letter in the mail (or wonder what treasures might be dropped off by the mailman) and bounce into the house from the mailbox upon receiving something fun and/or unexpected from a friend. Nothing quite compares to the whole experience from anticipation to ripping open an envelope and reading carefully sculpted thoughts...written with a pen! ...and then sitting down at some point afterwards to write a response to that valued friend. Sure, email captures some of that same rush, but it's just not quite the same.