Letter writing

[wshaffer]

In the days before email, Twitter, Facebook, LJ, and so on, I used to be quite a writer of letters. Now my only regular correspondent is my grandfather, and it's a slightly odd correspondence. Periodically, he sends me a short note or card, often with a birthday or holiday gift. I respond with a letter, and later on, I hear from my mother how much he enjoyed my letter.

Possibly I should just use the phone like a normal person.

But I like writing letters, even though I write them seldom enough that with each new one I feel like I have to remaster the form. "Dear Grandpa," is how I start. That part is easy. Then what? Should I tell him about that funny thing that happened at work? But that was like, days ago, and I already posted about it on Facebook. Grandpa doesn't read Facebook. Tell him about the funny thing that happened at work. And about seeing the Hobbit. And your plans for the new year. And suddenly there is no shortage of things to write about.

And then after three or four paragraphs, I start to think, "Woah, okay, maybe that's enough. We don't want to bore him with every little thing." Even though I suspect that no grandparent has ever complained, "The problem with my grandchildren is that they tell me too much and share too much of their lives with me."

Maybe in 2013, I will write to my grandfather more often, just to stay in shape with this letter-writing thing.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

What I used to do with my Dad was to write a page or two every day for a week, dated. When I had several pages, I'd mail them to him. He liked it because it gave him a sense of my day-to-day life. I liked it because it was a low-stress way to write letters. It was like Facebook before there was Facebook. - Keyan

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am a great writer of letters, and I start one, "Dear Grandpa," every week, to markgritter's grandfather. I would be weirded out if I got one that started like that from you, though.