A letter from me to you

Dear Julienne: I thought you might enjoy receiving an actual letter in the actual mail, so I’ve actually written you one. I know it’s not the most “modern” thing to do, but sometimes a little bit of “old school” is what the doctor ordered.

It wasn’t all that easy to write, let me tell you. First, I had to put away my cellphone. The urge to just send you a text message was strong. Finding a decent piece of unwrinkled non-lined paper was difficult, too. But as you can see, I found one. Next, I had to find a pen that actually worked (Who owns ink pens anymore?). I went through two dozen buried deep in our “where did this come from?” drawer before I found the one I’m using. Finally, I set thought to paper, checking the dictionary as I went along so as not to misspell anything, then put a stamp on the whole thing, and there you have it. At least I hope you have it.

Well, that’s all for now. Have a great day. And I hope to hear back from you, if you feel up to it.

Dear Steven: I hope you don’t mind, but I just wrote a letter to your wife. Since she’s a teacher, I thought she might enjoy one – you know, out of the blue, vintage Pony Express. And then I started thinking, you being an accountant and all, I might need to send you a letter, too, just to keep things even. I’m hoping you don’t find that odd. (HaHa, accounting humor)

Just curious: when you looked in the mailbox this afternoon and saw there was a letter from me, was your first thought, “I bet he wants me to do his taxes, even though I keep telling him I’m not that kind of accountant”? HA! Fooled ya. It’s just a letter saying I wrote your wife a letter. 

And that’s all I have to say about that. Wish you well, good accounting, and I’ll see ya when I see ya.

Dear Susan: Just giving you a heads up, I wrote letters to both your brother and his wife. I thought while I was at it, I might as well write one to you, too. I know, I could’ve saved a stamp and just told you, but then my words would’ve simply evaporated into thin air. This way, you can save all these words forever in a drawer and bring them out on a rainy day to reminisce about the time I sent you a letter that says I wrote a letter to your brother and his wife. And if that isn’t old-timey romance, I don’t know what is.

Dear Mom & Dad: I’m sorry I never wrote many letters to you two while you were living. It would have been a nice way to keep you informed with all the events in our life, and vice versa.  Of course, we did keep each other up to date through electronic means, but a lot of those emails/texts are lost in The Cloud, and I don’t see it raining anytime soon. Digital correspondence is all about ones and zeros, fonts and point size, legible words mostly spell-checked and approved. Physical letters are all about ink to paper, anticipation and excitement, trying to decipher what is actually written.

I’m guessing we could keep all our emails on a tiny flash drive stuck in a box somewhere, but that’s just not the same as rifling through a pile of letters, all rubber-banded together, and knowing it came straight from your hand to mine.

Ah, the things we should’ve done but didn’t; the things we didn’t know, but now do.

Dear Kids: I’m sending you this text message instead of writing you a letter because I’m not sure you know how to open a real envelope without getting paper cuts. JK. LOL. Hello? Is this thing on?