Snail Mail, Pen Friends & The Art of Handwritten Letters

A letter aka a snail mail. Man hasn’t it been ages since anyone sent me one. I think the last letter I ever sent out was around 1998 and it was probably around that same time that I received my last snail mail too. I remember when I used to think that getting a letter was a huge deal. Getting greetings cards too! I used to have a few pen friends who I met via rock magazines and even when I first started using the internet, I made a few chat friends who exchanged snail mail with me too.

I loved the art of writing letters (yes it is an art form my friends) and getting a few goodies in the envelope along with the letter was the icing on the cake. I’m talking about photos, little cards, stickers or some stuff like that. Little cutouts from a magazine or newspaper that mean something or is relevant to a point in the letter – those were bonuses. And I loved doing that. Getting a handwritten letter from a new friend who lives in another country was special.

I had a few pen friends who wrote to me on a frequent level. Mostly girls (ofcourse) but the odd guy here or there. A girl in Assam, a few in the Philippines, one from Malaysia, another from New Zealand, Canada and from FInland. I’ve received a few other letters from others but these were the most frequent ones I had, while others were probably just one letter or two and then there were no more correspondences. I still have some of the letters from these ladies, tucked away in an old diary in a cupboard drawer hidden away. I’d probably need to dust it away just to look at it and remember the ‘caveman’ days before I started to rely on emails and chat on a regular level.