Hey there, today is National Letter Writing Day. Let's get started. Today is National Letter Writing Day, and this day has a really special place in my heart. I have been raised as a letter writer.
I'm all about letter writing. And when you think about letter writing, back in the day, I'm not saying back in the day, I mean in the day, day, way, long time ago, writing letters was the only way that people were able to stay in contact with each other. But not only that, the fact that people wrote letters, we now know information about history. There were people on the battlefields, fighting wars, and they were writing letters back home telling their families what was going on, what they were seeing, what they were experiencing.
And it's because of letter writing, we were able to get an idea of what that must have been like. So letter writing is very important. However, with the invention of the telephone, people stop writing as much, because now I don't have to take the time to sit down, pen something, come up with something in my head and put it on paper, put it in an envelope, get postage, and send it. Actually, I don't know if they had postage back in the days of the Pony Express.
But still, you have a process to go through, and it takes more time to do that. And if you're expecting a letter back, there's that wait time. Whereas you can pick up a phone and have a letter, so to speak, given in real time and receive the feedback as well. So I still think, though, that letters are very important, because the conversations that we have on telephones, they happen in an instant and they're gone.
Whereas the letters, the actual words on paper, as long as that paper is around, it's preservable. You can put it in a scrapbook, you can scan it now, and put it on a device like a computer or a hard drive, or an external hard drive, or whatever, a jump drive. You can do a lot with that written word that you can't do with the spoken word. Spoken word is gone, and if it was just two people on the phone, and those two people are gone, that conversation is gone.
On top of that, there's no way to verify whether or not this was said or that was said, because it's a he-say-say-type thing. But if you write it in a letter, it's there for all to see. The truth is there, you know? So like I said, I am a really big letter-writing person.
I haven't written a letter in a while, I'm trying to think when's the last time I wrote a letter. I'm not really sure. But even with thank-you notes, I feel like the proper way to do a thank-you note is a handwritten thank-you. I received a computer-generated one a few days ago, and I just kind of shrugged at it.
I'm like, yeah, I hear you. I can see the words on the paper, but I'm not feeling it because I really don't feel like it meant much to you that you had this generated and sent to me. So yes, I am a snob when it comes to letters, letter writing, and whatnot, because you would think, oh, well, it's something that came into mail and you like that, right? Yeah, I do.
But where's the personal touch that's added to it? Because you hit a button and you hit return and it printed? No. Let me explain my statement about the fact that I was raised as a letter writer.
Every summer, my family would go on summer vacation. And the very first stop that we would make whenever we made it to our destination would be to some place that sold postcards and stamps. We had a list of the different relatives that we would send postcards to, and it's funny because I had an Aunt Claudia and Aunt Eva. And they communicated with each other, undoubtedly.
So I always had to make sure that their cards were about the same level. You couldn't send one a better card than the other one because word would get back to you that one life, the card, better than the other. But neither here nor there. Just add a thread in there.
We would go, my mom would take a piece of paper and she would write down whatever the postcard sentiment was. That was going to go to everyone. And I sat down and I wrote the information and I addressed it and we put it in the mail and then we went about our business of having fun for the actual vacation. So we did that in the summers if I received a gift from someone.
We would sit down. We would write them a letter to say thank you. If, like, graduation time, birthday time, anything like that, sometimes for no real reason at all, the fact that you haven't heard from or talked to the person in a while to let them know that you were thinking of them. Now let me tell you the thing that came out of that that then turned me into a letter writer because I'm not even a lie to you.
The entire time that my mom was pushing that on me, I can't say that I was receiving it. I was doing it because my mom said to do it. But I was not doing it because I wanted to do it. But then I started to notice something.
When I would write these random letters to my aunts and uncles and stuff like that that were in different cities and states and whatnot, something amazing would happen. They would write me back. I loved to receive letters in the mail. It was amazing to go to the mailbox and then open it up and see my name on an envelope.
But the part that was even better is that because I took the time out to reach out to see how they're doing, they would in turn send me a letter and in most cases they sent money along with it. Well, wow, okay, all I have to do is write a letter and I might get some money. Now it didn't happen all the time and it didn't even matter at a certain point whether or not there was money or not. It wasn't like I was opening the envelopes and shaking it to see what falls out.
What not type of situation? It was a bonus because the letter itself was fun as well because they were interacting with me. It wasn't me being in a place with my parents and they're talking and then, oh, hey, that no, this was a letter directed at me to me, for me, about me and I loved it. So I continued on throughout college.
I was writing letters to my mom's friends just saying, hey, just wanted to let you know, things are great here in college. We got our grades the other day and I'm doing great. I have 18 hours, I have 21 hours. I'm here doing this at the third.
It felt good to receive letters back and to see them say that they were proud of me and keep up the good work. I loved that and it just became a thing. So that's why I'm still a letter writer. I'm trying to groom my daughter now to be a letter writer.
I must admit though, there are other people in my life that I wish for them to be letter writers and they always come up with some excuse, some reason, but you make time for what you want to make time for. If it means something to you to reach out to somebody, then you'll take that time to sit down and write a few words on a piece of paper and throw it in the mail. You'll do that. And so it's hurtful to me when it's people that I love, that it's kind of like, hey, we want to find out how you guys are doing, want to get pictures of the family, that sort of thing and you don't get that in return because we have cell phones and stuff like that.
Now people want to shoot you a text and send a picture by phone. Well, the unfortunate part is when you send somebody a picture on their phone, are they really downloading it and printing it? No, it gets lost in the phone. It's in there and they may come back and see it, they may not.
I like to brag on my people. Simple as that, I like to brag. So when I see friends and they ask me about my family and whatnot, I want to show pictures, but I have to like save it as a favorite or something like that in my phone to make sure that I can do that when I can just go reach in my wallet and be like, oh, let me show you pictures. These are the new ones, you know?
But everybody's not like me and I have to understand that and I have to know that. But bottom line, that's a letter writing. It is an art that is slowly fading. When you think about it, the fact that the art of letter writing is slowly disappearing.
The number of letters being sent has gone down drastically. The post office is suffering. Have you noticed how often they raise the rates for their postage stamps? Simply because people are not sending letters.
Now they'll go to the post office and get a money order. They'll send a box, but it's even amazing to me when people send a box with something in it for you and won't even put a piece of paper in it to say, hey, how you doing? This is what this is, hope you enjoy it. Nothing, it's just a box with stuff in it and you have to then call them and be like, hey, I got the box.
Thanks, you know? I appreciate it. That sort of thing. So I feel like if we, I know that one person alone by writing more letters isn't going to save the post office and stuff like that, but if we all just kind of try to do better, then maybe a big enough wave of people will then actually create some difference in the idea that maybe postage stamps can kind of hover here for a little bit before they move up to the next step of price increases.
So I challenge you to write one letter a month. Pick a friend, pick a family member, say on the first of the month, you write a letter. And if they reply back to you, great, that's a bonus. If they don't, it's okay, they knew that you were thinking about them.
Here's my second challenge. If you have access to children, if you're a teacher and you have a classroom full of kids, make that an assignment that they have to write a letter, teach them how to write letters, and then continue it on. Don't just let it be a lesson today and nothing else. Continue, have them write a letter a month, a letter a week, something to get them in the habit of writing letters.
Let's say you're a grandmother and you have access to your children, your grandchildren right there. You can reach them and touch them and everything. Get them into sending letters to other family members, because maybe mom and dad are too busy. They've got jobs and whatnot.
Well, Granny, if you are retired, then let that be your test. You help the children learn to reach out to the other family members that maybe they don't live near, that they don't interact with on a regular basis. Foster some type of relationship by way of letter writing. You'd be so amazed at how you will appreciate it in the long run.
For example, one of my mom's friends and just thinking about it has me getting all teary-eyed. Her name is Marilyn. I would write Marilyn letters, when my mom had no idea I was writing letters to her. It got to the point where I was referring to Marilyn as Granny, because Marilyn came into my life after my grandmother had passed.
Although she was on age with my mom and one of my mom's friends, I looked to her like a grandmother figure. It even got to the point where Marilyn's son and his wife and kids were like, who is Yvette and how is she related to us? Because we've seen cards and stuff where she's writing to our grandmother saying, hey Granny, and how come we don't know this cousin? And it's like, well, I'm technically not a cousin, but I have claimed your grandmother as mine as well.
So yes, this is Granny. So Marilyn's no longer with us. Marilyn has passed. And I still have the cards and letters that Marilyn sent to me.
And it means so much to have something from her that she wrote by hand that to look back at how when she was, she had some trouble walking at one point and a doctor told her she needed to walk more. And she would tell me like, hey, I got out there today, and it was a little brisk, but I got my steps in. And it was really good. I mean, we literally had like a pen pal type situation going where she would write, I would write back, and it would just go back and forth that way.
And so my wish for you is that you get to experience that with someone. So why not start today, National Letter Writing Day? If you guys believe in Santa, write a letter to Santa. Write a letter to somebody.
And just keep the ball rolling because it'll mean so much in the long run. Thanks for joining me for today's episode about National Letter Writing Day. And once again, my challenge to you is take today, write a letter, and then hopefully by the 1st of January, you'll be on board with me to write a letter a month. Pick the 1st of the month or whatever day that's significant to you and write letters to the people in your life, maybe that you missed, that you love, whatever.
Get the ball going. And I guarantee you that you'll be glad that you did. In the meanwhile, let me know how it goes. You know where to find me, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube at hey, that's at h-e-v-e-v-e-t-e, or just look for the hashtag tweet trends.
And hey, I'm excited to see what you're going to start out there. So get right in, get those kitties writing and everything. And let's do this. Let's save the post office.