the joy of snail mail

 in the past few weeks, i've been spending a lot of time organizing my room in my parents' house.  in it are boxes upon boxes full of unorganized things from the past 6 years of my life.  in order to effectively live in this room while i'm not gallivanting somewhere else, i must unpack.  as a part of this process, i'm cleaning out drawers and other spaces to make room for everything that must come out of boxes.  one of the most entertaining drawers that i've cleaned out has been my nightstand drawer which was FULL of notes i received from friends during middle and high school.  no doubt, these notes were passed to me during class, in the halls, or put on my car for discovery at the end of the day.  many were folded in intricate origami patterns and some were written so cryptically, i had no idea what the message was.  rereading them brought back so many memories of weekend parties, crushes we had on so many different boys, and many other things that have slipped from my memory since high school graduation; i was so glad that i kept them all, reliving each one of them was hilarious.  

yesterday, i was telling a friend about my note drawer discovery and i was surprised to hear that he had a similar (but much smaller) old collection of notes from years back and had recently reread them in a fashion very similar to what i described.  we reminisced about high school, how much time had passed, and how much we had changed since and he posed the question, when's the last time you passed a note to someone!? and i realized that i still write notes all the time.  

no, i'm not folding them intricately and passing them during class, but i write and send notes to friends and family all the time.  many of you are lucky to be on my postcard-recipient list to which i'll write you colorful and (i hope) exciting postcards from my travels and to those of you who sent me handwritten greetings in italy, i always reciprocated.  it's true, though, that we are a dying breed and it's much more likely to send (and receive) an email, text message, or some other form of electronic greeting than an actual letter in the mail.

i recently passed along a challenge to talk to people and now i'm extending it to include the act of sending a letter because what a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters.  you can't reread a phone call [liz carpenter].

along with this challenge to you, i want to send even more postcards during my travels!  in the states, a postcard stamp only costs 29 cents but postcards themselves can cost anywhere from 25 cents to more than a dollar.  that, my friends, can add up.  and then all over the world, international postage varies.  for example, to send a postcard from italy to the united states costs 1.84 euro which (with the current exchange rate) equals $2.57.  when you add in the cost of the actual card, that's more than $3 a postcard!  just thinking about the quantity of cards i sent out last year and how much money i must have spent in total boggles my mind (i don't think i'll do the math, i know it was a lot).

so, i'm asking you all to help me out.  if you like postcards, donate to my postcard fund!  if you appreciate the dying art of snail mail, help me to keep it going!  to the left of this post, underneath my "about me" section, you'll find a button labeled donate.  all you have to do is log in through paypal and very securely send some postcard money my way!  your thoughtful donation will be much appreciated!  


and don't forget to take the time to sit down and write someone, they'll appreciate the thought.


x!