write more letters by hand

My neighbors (the ones who felt the need to not only thank me for their gift from India but send a card as well) bought me a Christmas present of a handmade metal bookmarks, so I used my last pretty notecard to send them a thank-you note.

I need to send one to my grandma too, but I don’t know if I should do it on regular stationery, make the card, or use the UglyDoll stationery I splurged on a while back.

I also need more stamps. :(

Rising Postage!

This morning I woke up to a facebook friend request from Mari, my Japanese pen-pal.

I hadn’t written her in at least 3 years, I think, and hadn’t seen a picture of her in 6.

Boy, has she changed!

I am so happy I managed to get back in touch with her. One down, who knows how many to go…

Sometimes I feel like I’m grasping at straws trying to contact my former pen-pals. The chances that I’ll be able to reach them at 4, sometimes 8 or 9-year-old addresses is slim as it is, and it’s far more likely that if the letter gets to them, they won’t want to have anything to do with me anymore. I mean, how many people pen-pal once they reach their 20s?

I’m still sending letters out, though. Only this time I’m keeping track of who I am sending them too, so I can stop sending them letters. I doubt that foreign post offices will return-to-sender letters that don’t reach their destination, and if I don’t hear anything by snail mail or e-mail, it’s the end of the road for me.

I only pray that Asa will respond by e-mail within a week, or that she will receive my letter. I really would like to be her pen-pal again, not only because I really liked her as a person, but I desperately want to talk to her about her country, and in her language once I start learning it.

from 43things like to be my pen-pal? Preferably US at this point, aged 16-30. Let me know!

I got a thank-you card in the mail today from my next-door neighbor, for giving her a Tibetan shawl that I brought back from India. It was stamped and everything, and made me laugh. It’s good to know there are still some people who do things the old-fashioned way. It means more that she took the time to write a thank-you note and mail it, rather than just saying thanks in person or e-mailing me.

There is always room in my life and heart for new good, true friends.

The question is whether or not this is lonesome, or satisfying.

I’d like to think some of my pen-pals kept a letter or two; that my words helped or amused or even angered them enough to hold onto them. I hold onto my own letters of hope and inspiration.

I found through letters what I couldn’t find in my peers growing up; now that I’m an “adult,” it saddens me to discover that I no longer have that to fall back on.

I’m finding most of my pen-pal letters being bounced back to me, because my pen-pals have moved.

This sucks.

Everyone I know has had a pen-pal at one point in time. Elementary school, usually. They wrote one letter to them and never heard back; or the pen-pal wrote them a letter and they never bothered to respond. They always express some sort of nostalgia when talking about their “friend”, whose name or country they remember, but they are never singed with regret for things not having worked out.

And so, people don’t understand the kind of relationships I have had and continue to have with people whom I have never met.

I had a pen-pal like everyone else seems to have had, and when it faded, I wanted more. Luckily for my fourth-grade self, the culture was different in America, and it was safe for Frisch’s Big Boy to print names and addresses of schoolchildren in their little kid’s menu. I submitted my name, and it was printed; my interests at the time were “clarinet” and “stickers” that I know of, and probably “cats” as well.

I had several letters. I kept one from a girl who I’m still in touch with today, and I’m still in touch with three of my original pen-pals. From these people, I was introduced to FBs, or Friendship Books—little booklets where you wrote down your name, address, and interests, and passed it along to your friends to do the same.

It is through these small scraps of paper that I started receiving letters from all over the world.

At one point in time, I had over 200 pen-pals, although many of them stopped writing after a few letters.

Somewhere along the ages, these kids stopped writing. They were busy, and I soon became busy with life as I knew it. High school. I still sporadically kept in touch with a few of them, but I could use both hands to name all of them.

I’m not sure why I’ve suddenly developed such a yearning for these former pen-pals and “friends forever” of mine. At first I thought I just wanted mail that wasn’t bills, so I signed up to postcrossing.com, and started sending and receiving postcards from around the world.

But then it hit me: I want to pen-pal again. More than this, I want to keep in touch with my old pen-pals, the people that have known me longer than almost anyone else. I want new pen-pals, but responsible, creative ones—ones that won’t stop writing after a few letters, ones whose letters are full of interesting content, bits and pieces of their daily lives.

I’ve sent over 10 letters this summer, and I have a few more people I need to write to. I’m also sending postcards to my friends from India and Thailand. I would like to get back into the letter-writing phase, where letters don’t get lost amongst my schoolwork or forgotten, where I remember to buy stamps and send out letters in a timely fashion, and where I don’t have to deal with the burdens that come with trading FBs or hearing no response from those I’ve written to.

I want to show others how I am living my life, share with them my experiences, and for them to do the same. Sure, e-mail may come in handy, but there’s nothing like taking the time to sit down and write an actual letter.

I hope my letters are answered.