Death of the Love Letter

Earlier this year as I was packing in preparation for my move back to D.C., I came across a photo box.  A feeling of nostalgia arose, and I decided to go through the old photos.  Then of course, one box leads to the next until I came across a box full of folded pieces of paper.  Letters.  Love letters. Hours went by as laid on the floor reading each one, reminiscing, laughing and daydreaming.  It was a good day.

I don’t remember the last time I received a love letter in its purest form- pen and paper.  I just know somewhere along the way, pen and paper where replaced with frequent “love emails” to my old hotmail account.  By the time gmail came along, these love emails became more and more scarce.  Then there was myspace and facebook with wall messages that made the once private exchanges, public.  But I believe the final blow to the antiquated love letter was when phone companies finally created unlimited text plans.  For an additional low price, you have the option to text as much as you like in 160 characters intervals.  160 characters-that is all spaces and punctuation included.  The letters I came across were pages, some were essays explaining the hows and whys of their love.  They gave examples of how they have showed their affection and proposed new ideas to woo me in the future.  You can’t woo in 160 characters.  So when I get these 160 character love texts, I am underwhelmed and under-wooed.

Maybe I will run across a renaissance man that owns college-ruled notebook paper and a bic pen that is not afraid to venture into the world before laptops and ipads, before blackberries and iphones, and simply write.  So maybe, 15 years later when I am cleaning up, I will run across his letters and waste the afternoon away reading them and reminiscing about our time shared.  And just maybe, we will still be creating new memories for future letters.