It has been to long since I have written a post on this little ol' blog of mine. I sat down tonight to carve out some time to do an activity that brings me joy and it occurred to me that I needed to share it with all of you.
For YEARS, my Grandmas have been writing me letters. Holiday cards, little I love you notes, clippings of articles they find and think I need to see. Some letters are long, others are short post-it notes attached to something they think I would enjoy reading or learning about, but always handwritten and always mailed. Through the good old United States Postal Service. You know...that place that usually only sends bills or unwanted catalogs?! My grandmothers have continued to utilize this amazing system to send things to me my whole life.
When I was 18 and living in London I got my first real taste of how much a letter can touch a person. I was young, in a foreign country and completely alone. Didn't know a single soul....not a one! The letters I received while living there were one of my greatest joys. I would anxiously wait for the lady of the house I was staying in to get "the post" and hope there would be something for me from someone back home. When I was homesick I would read them over and over again. Back then, email wasn't as common and calling was outrageously expensive. I would walk to a pay phone every Sunday and call home using a calling card that never seemed to have enough minutes on it. More often then not the call would consist of my requests for someone to "send me......_______....(insert desired object). Looking back now I am pretty sure that my requests were for American cigarettes......HA! (which now I know is illegal to send...but whatever....I was 18.....and maintaining a nicotine addiction is hard when you're a poor college student.)
Judge all you want...but a hand written note and a smuggled in pack of Camel Lights made this girls week back then. Who am I kidding?? It would STILL make my week!
Fast forward through the years and life went on, it got different, but the Grandma letters kept coming.
I am ashamed to admit that there were years where I didn't respond. There were years where I never wrote back, or would just say a quick "got your letter, Thanks", when on the phone with one of the Grandmas. They never gave up, they never stopped, they just continued to write. Thank God they did.
A little over a year ago I started to make it a point to write back to them when I would get a letter in the mail. I would find a card I had laying around, or some scratch paper and just jot a little "update" and put it in the mail. Then something amazing happened. Writing those letters became the very best part of some of my days. I would get some tea and instead of trying to find some movie to watch or something to clean, or write another million mile long to-do list I would sit on my couch, in silence and write to one of them. I would tell them a funny story about something that happened that day, or ask them a question about cooking something, or maybe just write about the weather. Point is, it didn't matter what I wrote, it just felt so so good to connect with them for a minute.
Now, people always say, "You actually write them?? Why don't you just email them, or call them?" The simple answer is that I HATE the phone, and emails have been ruined by so many years of work so the act of writing a letter fills me with joy and doesn't feel like a chore at all. It never feels like I am checking off a task that I need to get done, or finally getting around to "handling" something.....it just feels like I am talking to them, and telling them all the things that I THINK about telling them but for years thought I never had the time to. Or that I would remember to tell them next time I talked to them. Hell, I can't even remember my own name some days....how am I going to remember to ask one of them how you successfully sew on a button, or save a plant, or not take out some kid who is making your kid's life hard?? (Grandmas always have the best answers to such questions by the way.)
I fell in love with my writing letter time so much that I began to slowly expand my "letters list". This 10-30 minute time at night where I drag out all my stationary and pens and stamps and stickers (because I am a nerd like that and stamps and stickers make me as happy as a 5 year old) and write has become a sort of relaxing meditation of sorts for me. My handwriting is atrocious and half the time I probably make zero sense, but when I am done and I look at my little stack of letters that I get to mail out the next day my heart gets really really BIG, and I say a little Thank You to the Universe that I have these amazing people to write to. These little letters let me do something that for a long time I had convinced myself I was already doing but really probably wasn't.
They allow me to let the people who have touched my life KNOW they have made a difference. They give me a tool to tell those people that even if I go months without "talking" to them, I DO think about them, I DO care about them and I DO love and want to know how they are. It takes 10 minutes, and I go to bed knowing that I took action on those thoughts, I did my part and took time to make time for them....and it takes a little bit of paper and a 49 cent stamp. You may think it's ridiculous but it blows my mind with gratitude every time!
After a couple months of being hooked on writing letters I was looking for some stationary online and came across an organization dedicated to bringing back the lost art of letter writing. Through them I now have a pen-pal in Texas and one in New York. I am learning and connecting with two amazing human beings who I would have probably never met and finding out more and more through every letter that we really are all the same. We just want connection to our fellows. We just want to know that people are good, and lovable and kind. It is like Christmas every time I go to check the mail and find a letter waiting for me. My Texas pen-pal is learning to dance with their spouse, and it is a hilarious nightmare! My New York pen-pal is trying to navigate through life after the loss of his mother whom he cared for the last 20 years. I am satisfying my undying need for "adventure" by hearing about theirs. It's the coolest thing ever! (and so much more fun then my last pen-pal in 2nd grade who was some silly boy in Missouri who only ever wrote about kick-ball)
I have reconnected with friends in a way I never thought possible and I have a whole box of letters in my room that are an instant source of love and gratitude anytime I need it. It is one of my biggest joys in this thing called the middle.
Now go and write your Grandma......or your best friend....or even someone you live with a letter...(I write my daughter a letter almost every week....and act all surprised when it shows up in our mail box like.."OOOOH you got a letter!!!" and I wink at her and she smiles and shakes her head but then tacks it up on her pin board in her room where the special things go)....Just write someone a letter it will make their day!
And if you can't think of anyone to write...write to me....I would love to write back!
One Love
Danielle
