In a world full of rapidly advancing technology, one where every direction you look you see someone on their phone, a television screen, a tablet, a toddler knowing how to use an iPhone; in a world with constant connectivity and communication, it is such an amazing moment when you get a hand written letter, delivered half way across the country, days after the words were thought out with pen and paper.
Such a simple thing, a letter, with such a powerful effect, and in a world in which they are so rare, receiving a letter has become such a special thing.
After starting college, my friends and I often wrote each other letters. We would still communicate via texting and Facebook, but every once in a while we would surprise each other with hand written letters, pages long, talking about things we never told them over text, spilling emotions that we would never dare to type out with our thumbs. But in a letter, on something as simple as a piece of paper, we could tell stories that only felt right to be told by hand.
As a kid I would always receive birthday cards from relatives states away, with some cash or gift card tucked safely in the envelope. But growing up, you realize that happens less often than we thought. Bills, advertisements, and other dull things lay in our mailboxes, waiting for us to pull them out of the metal container just to store them on our counters for months to come.
But those letters, with handwritten addresses, our names written across the middle in some familiar handwriting, that is the most exciting piece of mail we could ever receive.
While reading letters I have received over the years, all of which I keep, I can tell how much thought, emotion, and truth is in every word. They aren’t just pointless texts that will end up being deleted in a few months, they are sacred; such a special and beautiful thing in a world full of routine and unexciting things.
A letter has the equivalent value of a text message that you lock and save, not one you screenshot and save in your pictures, but one you keep in your texting archives with that person, even long after you delete the rest of the insignificant messages.
The words put into a letter are so carefully thought, I have written and rewritten letter many times, trying to find the perfect words to use, the words that have to most meaning and the most truth. It is in a letter that I feel like I can express my feelings the most, because it is such a special thing, something that isn’t given or received every day, something that takes time to write, takes time to send, and takes time to receive.
Sending a letter is as exciting as getting one, waiting for the person you send it to, to finally find it lying in their mailbox, amongst bills and pointless advertisements. And it is exciting sending them, because we know how exciting it is receiving them.
I am not one to only send letter. I write people letters who I see every day. I write letters to my sister, mom, friends, and I write these letters because I know how much meaning a silly note written on paper can mean in a world full of digital notes.
