Dear Reader,
There is no better way to express my love for letter writing than through the medium itself. My appreciation for letter-writing began in my early teenage years. The night before my friend’s birthday, I would pour my heart into these small cards to let them know just how much they mean to me and how I cherish all of our memories together. As I squeezed every word in that I could fit, I always found myself wanting to write more. As soon as I ditched birthday cards and began writing letters they slowly turned into emotional ballads to my best friends. I would get texts, video messages and calls from my friends saying something along the lines of, “another year, another time you made me cry!”. These tears were happy ones of course because my friends were often taken aback by the depth of my appreciation for them. I have always had difficulty verbalizing how much I care about those who are close to my heart and instead, show how much I care about them through kind acts. There’s a level of intimacy involved in letter writing that can’t be achieved through a paragraph over text or speaking to the recipient. Whenever I write a letter I leave a piece of myself on the page and whether it’s hand-written or typed, each letter is personalized for their eyes only. I love that I can just write down how I feel, without a filter or the use of auto correct, into a form that will be with the person forever. Despite the evolutions of the relationship that I had with that person, the feelings I had when I wrote those letters will always be there. The permanency of letters was initially daunting to me, but in some weird way, it pushes me to be as honest as I possibly can. Over time, I have become desensitized to texting and I see words as just pixels on a screen rather than words that mean something. In our digital age, appreciation for friends and family tends to be expressed through a quick text or an Instagram like, and it’s nice to take a break from that to write about how I feel. As a kid who grew up shy, writing letters allowed me to express how I feel, whether it was positive or negative, or even if the recipient of the letter never read it. I’ll always be thankful for how letter-writing began my journey to be emotionally expressive to those who are closest to me.
Sincerely,
Selina