My friend asked me once:
- Have you ever written a letter?
- Yes, – I answered, – And you?
- Never, – my friend said and became sad because of this confession at the same time.
I think, everyone should try to write a letter in his/her life. It’s good if a letter would be written on the piece of paper, put in an ordinary envelope and sent with an ordinary post service. Though using the electronic mail is OK either. The point here is that the letter’s got to look like a letter, and not like a twit. Composing a letter is a separate individual process, so it’s good to devote a significant amount of your time to it. It is not recommended to write a letter on the fly – it would be right to eliminate all the distraction, relax and fall into the lyrical mood. Writing a letter is similar to journaling, except you have a recipient now, who can be your relative, soulmate, romantic partner, etc.
Now is the age of the abbreviations: the shorter is the message – the better. However, it’s necessary to overcome the temptation to make it quick and short. Do not limit yourself to a pair of words. Especially, it is not so difficult – start with “Hello”, and you won’t notice as you have a lot of pages already written.
Do not write letters every day – you should accumulate thoughts and feelings so you could share them with your recipient. When I was a kid, I had a pen friend: we lived in separate cities, but spent the summertime at the same village. During the academic year we exchanged with letters – about 2-3 letters for all the 9 months, but every letter was interesting to re-read again and again.
Writing letters is a huge pleasure. However, getting letters is even more joyful: it’s very exciting moment, when you find a letter in your postbox, especially when it is the unexpected one.
Try to write a letter right now. Do not think what you want to say too hard: just take a pen and start writing. The letter doesn’t have to be a piece of epistolary masterpiece. Simply put your warmth in it and a person, whom you write the letter to, will surely feel it. The recipient doesn’t have to be someone you haven’t seen for ages – it may be someone, who you meet every single day – believe me, he/she will be very glad to receive it anyway.
December 31, 2011
