I wrote a letter today. A real, old-school letter, handwritten on college-ruled notebook paper. This was not one of those "letters" that you write to someone who will never read them. This was a letter that's actually going to be delivered, and even now is making its way through the U.S. postal system to its intended recipient.
It wasn't easy, that's for sure. For one thing my handwriting is atrocious and seems to be only getting worse as I get older. I have to really concentrate and slow down or my handwriting won't be legible at all. But I just felt somehow that it was important that that I write in my own hand. Typing an email or DM wouldn't do. Even typing out a letter and printing off wasn't acceptable to me. There's something that about touching pen to paper that just felt right.
When I was finished, I read the letter over, put it in an envelope, addressed it and put a stamp on it and stuck it in my mailbox. I felt so good. I wanted to do it again! Letter-writing has become almost a novelty. I remember in the old days, when writing letters felt like such a huge task. There were literally dozens of people it seemed that I needed to write to. And I received so many letters, especially while I was a student missionary in Chuuk. There were letters from my mom and siblings, and close friends like Chandra, Greg, and Chris (J would have written but we were both in Chuuk together), college pals like Stacey and Kim, but also letters from a myriad of other people that I wasn't super-close with. I was touched by how many people took the time to pen me a letter while I was out in the mission field. I probably got more letters from this girl I was kind of interested in than anybody else. We'd met in Hawaii on our way out to Micronesia. She was teaching in Pohnpei and I was in Chuuk. I was quite surprised by how much she wrote, especially when in the end she ended up deciding to pursue a relationship with another student missionary teaching on the island of Palau (she ended up marrying him and they are still married today).
Like the tactile experience of paper and pen, the inability to edit is an aspect of letter writing that is both challenging but also rewarding. There's something about composing a message that you can't go back and edit (at least not easily). You choose your words carefully, that's for sure, and there's just a different quality about it. And of course it takes time--hand writing is much slower than typing, especially for me. It took me about an two hour and fifteen minutes from "Dear. . ." to postage stamp to compose the letter I wrote today.
In this age of instant messaging, there's something very vulnerable about taking that labor of love, sticking it in a flimsy envelope and trusting that somehow these pieces of paper will make it all the way to their distant destination, days from now, to be opened and read by someone I care about. And then not to know when or if they'll write back (I'm not really expecting a reply in this case). Nonetheless, writing a letter today made me feel really good. I wouldn't mind making it a habit once again.
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