the walk to the box.

Mailed a letter today. Walked to the box and put the letter in the mailbox. I don't remember the last time I did that.

I used to mail letters all the time. I had a few penpals as a kid. These penpals were also my friends in real life, but we would write each other. We lived not even 10 minutes away from each other, but we wanted to pen our own little note to each other. While our parents were getting all the letters, it was always nice to have that one piece in the heap that was for us. We would write about our daily ups and downs. School. Share jokes. Stuff kids write. I still have some of them in a box somewhere. Amazing how even though we were teenagers, we thought we were full blown adults. Using big words (written incorrectly, by the way) and thinking we were talking about big people first world problems. We we would write down the problems we thought were too serious to talk about or share in person. The letters were deep and thoughtful and touching and serious. Five paged letters. Front and back full of things that I have never shared with another soul. When we would see each other or talk to each other on the phone, we would ask if we got the note. We would respond and that was that. Just wait till the answer was in the mail. It was nice. It felt like I had another friend in another country that I never met. Funny that technology has given us more instant ways of communication, but it has lost that personal touch. The stamped driven envelope. The smell of the dry ink where we wrote our return address. The licked flap. I'd have that again any day. It's worth the walk to the box.