On the lost art of letter-writing
Jul. 10th, 2008 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodygranuaileSo I've been sitting here sorting through the giant stack of miscellaneous paperwork that I have accumulated since coming to college, separating the pay stubs from the medical bills from the letters from the silly birthday cards and cheap Valentines, and I discovered that holy fuck, there's really quite a number of letters in there. From my parents, from Kat, from Leah, some random ridiculous letter from Laura (my pirate wife, not the Laura whose room I stole).
I have all the letters Jim sent me freshman year, and now I have all the letters I sent him as well. He sent them back to me in a packet a few months ago. I stopped the correspondence last summer, not really on purpose, just because I didn't have anything to say because the summer was boring. I kind of wish I hadn't--he sent really good care packages. Always included books, tea, Post-It notes, and those blue pens I use for everything. Apparently it is weird to be receiving care packages from random middle-aged librarian men, which sucks, because I like getting random books from people. And seriously--free tea. Free tea cannot be a bad thing.
I have notes that were stuck on my door freshman year, and a letter from a friend from when our friendship hit the rocks and I didn't realize why. I'm very glad I kept that one.
That's about when I dug out my binder of letters from high school. Man, was that an embarrassing trip down memory lane. Letters, printed out AIM conversations and LiveJournal entries, all those god damn emails from Matt that were the only way he could ever express anything, dithering on about how he knew what true love was and this wasn't it but he still needed me around to cling to when he was lonely, which was always. Also a whole crap-ton of stuff by me reminding me of what a lonely, pretentious drama queen I was then, which is probably why we did get along so well for so long. I decided to take this binder off the shelf of stuff I use, and stuck it on the top shelf of my closet with all the diaries I've kept since fourth grade that I've filled up, where it belongs. That file is freaking closed.
There were some good things in it, too. Letters from my mom and brother when I was at German camp, some really weird conversations with Lindsay.
I have a habit of writing letters and not sending them. Some are love letters (for a more general definition of "love" than is usually associated with that phrase), some are hate letters, a lot of them are apology letters. There are a bunch in the high school binder; there are a couple in the sophomore year end of the college pile. I recall writing a few freshman year when some short-lived friendships started going sour, but apparently I threw those drafts out when I decided the friendships weren't worth saving. Letters I don't send seem to generally be me trying to get all the messy out and organize my thoughts as preparation for actual conversations I figured I'd need to have with people, so that I could feel like I'd said everything I'd wanted to say, and then could hopefully figure out and manage to just say what I needed to say, and semi-articulately. So far, it seems to sort of work. (Ether might be slowly destroying this habit, however. Stay tuned.)
I've always wondered if my diaries would be different, or if I would write in them more, if I wrote them as collections of letters to people. I read a lot of books in diary form when I was younger (the Dear America series was the big one), and a number of those diaries were set up as being for the benefit of some friend or family member who had given them the diary, or moved away/been moved away from, etc. Simply naming your diary isn't the same thing. I've always kind of wanted to keep a diary that was written to somebody, but I haven't had anybody to write an entire goddamn diary to. I wonder if I'd make more of an effort to make sure I filled in the stuff that had happened in the gaps between entries, if I'd explain things better instead of just emoting about them, if I'd bother describing people more, if I'd make sure my handwriting was occasionally legible (somehow, I doubt that last one). Or maybe I'd just get more guarded, trying to make myself look good.
I also like the idea of constantly sending off letters to some totally random person, a la The Perks of Being a Wallflower. If I'd read that book in high school I probably would have done it, at least until my shrink would have told me to stop. Unfortunately, I am now old enough and sane enough to realize that that would be a really creepy thing to do, at this point. Bah.
I really love writing letters. Some of my friends in high school and I would write each other letters all the goddamn time, even though we'd see each other nearly every day (I'm looking at you, Leah). I remember getting really bored one day in eighth grade and writing a bunch of my friends long rambly letters during class, including a few friends who did not yet know this about me and gave me funny looks when I gave them theirs. Unfortunately, due to reading too many silly old books from when novels in epistolary form were popular, my letter-writing style is even more long-winded and pretentious than this LiveJournal.
I also really love getting letters. And by letters, I strictly mean stuff written on paper. I hate email. Email is for school and business and for sending people files. It is not classy to use email for personal things. It is not classy to dump (for lack of a better term) your best friends over email, which happened to me once in elementary school, which is probably why I feel so strongly about it. It is also not classy to dump your girlfriend over email, which also happened to me once (upset me much less, though), nor is it classy to ask someone out over email, which has happened to me three times (was only dumb enough to accept the first one).
But getting a physical letter, on paper, that somebody has written or at least (and more likely, these days) signed by hand, feels much more personal. And concrete. It has tradition behind it, which I rather like. And I can stick it in a folder and go back and reread it whenever I like, which I can't do with a face-to-face conversation. I also just still have a small child's excitement at getting things in the mail (unless it's medical bills).
I also just really like paper. And pens. Every time I wander into a stationary store I stay there drooling and going "These are so pretty, I wish I had a use for them!" until somebody drags me out. I stole turquoise paper from the Hanover office the other day. I think this makes me weird.
I want a mail correspondence with somebody again. Summer kind of killed me and Leah writing letters, now that I'm coming home every couple weeks or so and actually see her. And being able to talk to pretty much everyone I know on the Internet tends to make letter-writing kind of an extraneous secondary communication: anything important gets communicated in a faster medium. Sad.
I think I need to go to bed now before you all unfriend me for clogging up your flists with all this random crap. ;)
<3 you all
I have all the letters Jim sent me freshman year, and now I have all the letters I sent him as well. He sent them back to me in a packet a few months ago. I stopped the correspondence last summer, not really on purpose, just because I didn't have anything to say because the summer was boring. I kind of wish I hadn't--he sent really good care packages. Always included books, tea, Post-It notes, and those blue pens I use for everything. Apparently it is weird to be receiving care packages from random middle-aged librarian men, which sucks, because I like getting random books from people. And seriously--free tea. Free tea cannot be a bad thing.
I have notes that were stuck on my door freshman year, and a letter from a friend from when our friendship hit the rocks and I didn't realize why. I'm very glad I kept that one.
That's about when I dug out my binder of letters from high school. Man, was that an embarrassing trip down memory lane. Letters, printed out AIM conversations and LiveJournal entries, all those god damn emails from Matt that were the only way he could ever express anything, dithering on about how he knew what true love was and this wasn't it but he still needed me around to cling to when he was lonely, which was always. Also a whole crap-ton of stuff by me reminding me of what a lonely, pretentious drama queen I was then, which is probably why we did get along so well for so long. I decided to take this binder off the shelf of stuff I use, and stuck it on the top shelf of my closet with all the diaries I've kept since fourth grade that I've filled up, where it belongs. That file is freaking closed.
There were some good things in it, too. Letters from my mom and brother when I was at German camp, some really weird conversations with Lindsay.
I have a habit of writing letters and not sending them. Some are love letters (for a more general definition of "love" than is usually associated with that phrase), some are hate letters, a lot of them are apology letters. There are a bunch in the high school binder; there are a couple in the sophomore year end of the college pile. I recall writing a few freshman year when some short-lived friendships started going sour, but apparently I threw those drafts out when I decided the friendships weren't worth saving. Letters I don't send seem to generally be me trying to get all the messy out and organize my thoughts as preparation for actual conversations I figured I'd need to have with people, so that I could feel like I'd said everything I'd wanted to say, and then could hopefully figure out and manage to just say what I needed to say, and semi-articulately. So far, it seems to sort of work. (Ether might be slowly destroying this habit, however. Stay tuned.)
I've always wondered if my diaries would be different, or if I would write in them more, if I wrote them as collections of letters to people. I read a lot of books in diary form when I was younger (the Dear America series was the big one), and a number of those diaries were set up as being for the benefit of some friend or family member who had given them the diary, or moved away/been moved away from, etc. Simply naming your diary isn't the same thing. I've always kind of wanted to keep a diary that was written to somebody, but I haven't had anybody to write an entire goddamn diary to. I wonder if I'd make more of an effort to make sure I filled in the stuff that had happened in the gaps between entries, if I'd explain things better instead of just emoting about them, if I'd bother describing people more, if I'd make sure my handwriting was occasionally legible (somehow, I doubt that last one). Or maybe I'd just get more guarded, trying to make myself look good.
I also like the idea of constantly sending off letters to some totally random person, a la The Perks of Being a Wallflower. If I'd read that book in high school I probably would have done it, at least until my shrink would have told me to stop. Unfortunately, I am now old enough and sane enough to realize that that would be a really creepy thing to do, at this point. Bah.
I really love writing letters. Some of my friends in high school and I would write each other letters all the goddamn time, even though we'd see each other nearly every day (I'm looking at you, Leah). I remember getting really bored one day in eighth grade and writing a bunch of my friends long rambly letters during class, including a few friends who did not yet know this about me and gave me funny looks when I gave them theirs. Unfortunately, due to reading too many silly old books from when novels in epistolary form were popular, my letter-writing style is even more long-winded and pretentious than this LiveJournal.
I also really love getting letters. And by letters, I strictly mean stuff written on paper. I hate email. Email is for school and business and for sending people files. It is not classy to use email for personal things. It is not classy to dump (for lack of a better term) your best friends over email, which happened to me once in elementary school, which is probably why I feel so strongly about it. It is also not classy to dump your girlfriend over email, which also happened to me once (upset me much less, though), nor is it classy to ask someone out over email, which has happened to me three times (was only dumb enough to accept the first one).
But getting a physical letter, on paper, that somebody has written or at least (and more likely, these days) signed by hand, feels much more personal. And concrete. It has tradition behind it, which I rather like. And I can stick it in a folder and go back and reread it whenever I like, which I can't do with a face-to-face conversation. I also just still have a small child's excitement at getting things in the mail (unless it's medical bills).
I also just really like paper. And pens. Every time I wander into a stationary store I stay there drooling and going "These are so pretty, I wish I had a use for them!" until somebody drags me out. I stole turquoise paper from the Hanover office the other day. I think this makes me weird.
I want a mail correspondence with somebody again. Summer kind of killed me and Leah writing letters, now that I'm coming home every couple weeks or so and actually see her. And being able to talk to pretty much everyone I know on the Internet tends to make letter-writing kind of an extraneous secondary communication: anything important gets communicated in a faster medium. Sad.
I think I need to go to bed now before you all unfriend me for clogging up your flists with all this random crap. ;)
<3 you all
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-11 09:29 am (UTC)Unfortunately, I don't log conversations for fear of my mother/people in general. Whenever I write things or save letters I am usually so embarrassed when i read them later that I throw them away/shred them/burn them. The problem is I wait months instead of years to reread them -- that kind of stuff tends to take a while to turn from humiliating to slightly funny.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-11 01:05 pm (UTC)A lot of our conversations consisted largely of bitching about people (surprise surprise). But since even our bitching-about-things style on AIM is kind of exaggerated and bizarre and full of using random chatspeak-in-all-caps to make fun of stuff, they're kind of amusing to reread.
And there is random German from back when I remembered, like, any German at all. I should do something about that.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 12:40 am (UTC)I've found some of our old letters to each other, as well, and some of them are absolutely fucking hilarious. Our younger selves were utterly insane, and probably would have benefited from sedatives.
Others nearly made me cry, remembering how utterly dire everything seemed to us at the age of fifteen-- how we could write pages and pages of some extended metaphor (God, Breheny would have been SO proud) just to try and make sense of what the hell we were going through, and what we really wanted.
I don't have any more of THAT series of letters-- I burned all of my copies the end of my junior year, when we stopped talking. I just remember them all, vividly.
I used to write letters to myself a lot, during classes. They'd end up being one or two sides of looseleaf, and I still find them when I go through my binders sometimes. I found one from the winter I turned sixteen, and realized that I could still remember sitting in Harding's english class and writing, glancing up every now and again to be sure she wasn't looking at me.
This is turning more into a post than a comment, but hey. It's all good.
M'enverra une lettre, et je répondrai tout de suite!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 02:49 am (UTC)My schedules are prone to changing frequently without a lot of notice, but if you send letters to my Clark address, I'll usually get them fairly soon. I don't like to stay at home for very long anymore.
Although I am here now, and leaving first thing in the morning on Tuesday, so if you're free at all between now and then we should definitely bake cookies or watch a stupid movie or something. Although tomorrow evening I am going to see King Lear, so will be unavailable then.
I just got back from Complete Works and it was awesome!
Je t'enverrai une lettre quand je retourne a Worcester, je te promets. ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 04:54 am (UTC)I used to be pen pals with my cousin in Chicago. We fell out of touch a little while before she died annnnd my family and I put together an album with pictures we had of her and every letter she had ever written to me to give to her immediate family.
and I know that it's nice for them to have her letters but I hate looking through my memory box and not having any of them left. I found one we missed. I'm not sure if I selfishly hid it away so I would have one for myself or if we just didn't see it when we put the album together
Point being: letters are amazing, they're so much more personal than any way I keep in contact with people nowadays
no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 05:44 am (UTC)