Well… after 14 years (ish) I am now officially single.  I have moved to my new home, and I am pretty much unpacked.  So in the process of unpacking, I came across a bundle of letters that I exchanged with friends when I was at school / college / early 20s.  It got me to thinking.  Nobody exchanges letters anymore.  I mean, why would we, when it’s so easy to type out a nice email and send it without really thinking about it.  Does anybody send letters any more?

As a teenager, I longed for a love letter or a real valentines card.  It took 34 years, but this year I finally got a proper valentines card this year.  I have no idea who it was from, but it was sent to work.  I don’t actually know who sent it.  The only potential sender swears blind it wasn’t him… so I’m out of luck and guesses.

Regardless, it would be nice to exchange proper letters with someone again.  I’d love to be all romantic and have an exchange of letters with someone special, but I guess the thoughts of doing something like that isn’t going to be happening any time soon.  You see in this day and age, our privacy is so heavily guarded, it’s like we want to keep it locked up and hidden away from everyone.  So sharing your home address isn’t something that anyone would readily do.  You’re email address? doesn’t seem to be a bit of a problem.

It wasn’t just the effort of writing a letter to someone who was your friend, I mean back then, it was the only real way to communicate.  Now we have text messages, emails, twitter, facebook etc.  Communicating is so easy. No, back then you took the time to go to the shops and pick out the nicest paper you could find to send to your friends.  Then you sat down and really thought about what you wanted to write, and you did so in long hand.  It really sucked when you made a mistake.  There wasn’t any backspace keys to remove the offending remark.

I’d love to find someone to exchange proper letters with.  Ones where I can pour my heart and emotions into it.  To really think about what it is that I’m saying.  To have a smile on my face when I get home from work to find the hand written envelope on my door mat.  I guess the hopeless romantic in me is still there, it’s just become somewhat cynical with the age of time, and damage of other people.