letters and memories

In my bedroom closet, I have a copy paper box. It is filled with letters and cards that I've received from friends and family over the years. Before the days of email and Facebook and texting, I actually was a fairly prolific letter writer, particularly between the ages of 13 and 28 or so. I had several friends during those years who lived across the state or across the country, and I kept up correspondence by letter since it was cheaper than long-distance telephone rates. And it was fun to get mail.

I decided to pull out the box tonight and start sorting through it, and decide whether it was time to let some of them go. I am rereading many of the letters as part of this process. I expected the trip down memory lane to be fun, and it has been so far. I didn't expect to find myself tearing up at times, but that has happened too. I miss the closeness I used to have with some of the friends who wrote those letters, and despite the ease of electronic communications, I know that we will never recreate the kind of friendships we used to have.

I have many more letters to go through,this is probably a weekend-long project. Some won't have an emotional tie for me anymore and those I will finally discard. Others will be very bittersweet, because they came from people who have since died and those letters may be the only thing I have left from them. Those I will keep, along with at least some of the ones from some of the more significant friendships of my past and present.

There are a few that made me laugh outright. This letter was written by my youngest sister, aged 11 at the time, when I was in my freshman year at Ohio State.




I still write real letters from time to time, although mostly if I do, the letter is to Joe. After all, a romance should have real love letters. ;-) Letter writing is not as easy as it used to be for me, though, I am woefully out of practice. I could make a vow to do better, but I suspect I would not be very successful at keeping it. Handwritten correspondence is going the way of the dodo, and I am one of the guilty parties in its ultimate demise.