I hope you're doing well! I really, really mean it.
I think. I always end up starting my handwritten letters with hello and “I hope you're doing well." This is a reflex of mine, but why? Why is it that, even here, when writing a letter, that I wish you well? A reader whose eyes I've never seen and traits I've never known? Well, the simple act of writing out a letter on paper, on my good stationery, with my name and nice flowers on the edges, changes the implications. As the ink begins to flow out of my pen, I have to carefully consider every thought. I have to investigate the permanence of my words. What I put into a letter can be inspired by my desire to hear friendly gossip, get to know a stranger, or simply to update my grandmother on the newest book that I've read. Letters can serve so many purposes, but, through all of them, one consistency is the desire to maintain connection. I write to you today in the hopes of inspiring you to pick up the pen and paper, and go to the post office. You see, we, as individuals, as a society, as members of the past, present, and future, are missing out on what it means to write letters. Postcards are a lost art form. Pen pals have stopped communication. The trip to the post office and purchase of a 53-cent stamp is too much effort in an age of instant gratification. So, what does it mean to send a letter in 2022 when handwriting takes too much time and feels like an ancient practice? Throughout my years at summer camp (elementary school to high school graduation), I begged my friends to send me letters, although I very infrequently received any. The disappointing pattern repeated during my first semester at college. I felt disappointed in the knowledge that they gave us a mailbox, and every time I checked, it would just contain letters to past residents or generic coupons. After writing to high school friends and old teachers, I expected some response. So, why? What's stopping my cousin, my camp friend “Guac", and my high school penpal from writing? What's stopping us from writing letters? When the nostalgia of the past sets in, I still pick up my special Muji pen and write to my nonna or my favorite high school teacher, but I often do not hear back. Our technological advancements make it easy for us to reach out to anyone at any time, and yet we feel more disconnected than ever. The ease of sending a text to someone without
having to consider the waste of ink or the size of paper limits our own mindfulness when sending those texts. We no longer consider what we really want to say and instead find our vague thoughts filling up the notification channel of our friends' phones. When I text someone, I feel that the conversation gets away from me. Inevitably, someone has to walk away from their phone while waiting for an inane reply. This can go on for long enough that the conversation ends and texting just becomes another unnecessary form of phone tag-calling someone to no response, only to miss the next call from them. Through letter writing, we are able to communicate so much depth in our conversations that is often lost in text communication. To illustrate, the resurfacing desire to “pen pal" has filled my TikTok feed this past year. As you may have seen from those pen paling TikToks or images on Pinterest, the thought and effort that goes into communicating