When was the last time you’ve written a letter?

I was posting some comments on one of my high school classmates’ wall on Facebook, when suddenly I remembered about how we used to write letters to each other (actually, we corresponded twice only) and how she used the wrapping papers she collected from her part-time job to write her letters.

I recalled the times when I wrote to several of my old classmates and actually maintained a long correspondence with one of them for about three years before we switched to e-mailing, Friendster and then Facebook.

Mobile phones aside, social websites have allowed us to stay in touch with our friends instantaneously no matter where we are around the world, which is great. I’m an avid user of Facebook and I’ve always tried to keep track of my friends, sending comments, sharing links and photos, and maybe sending some mails once a while.

Even so, I still missed the time when we actually have to write on pieces of papers, putting them into envelopes, posting the stamps, putting them into mailboxes and anxiously wait for the replies. Ya ya, you can call me old-school. I was born and raised in a time when Internet and mobile phone technology was still at its infancy. Back then, we write and send each other letters, CNY and X’mas cards.

I still keep all of my letters, even though there weren’t many of them before e-mailing became a common place. Looking through them, I remembered the time when I have to actually think it through before writing a letter, making sure not to make any mistake so that I won’t have to use a correction fluid or even rewrite the whole letter. As compared to e-mailing of Facebook-ing, more personal efforts were made into writing onto those pieces of papers. Efforts were also made in choosing which paper and envelope to use, sometimes even thinking what pen to write with.

Each letter is very personal. You can feel the accomplishment in completing a letter and send it to your friends. When I received a friend’s letter and read through it, I can almost sense the efforts being made by my friend. Seeing the letter was like seeing my friend in person. This is something that e-mail and social websites couldn’t replicate.

I really do appreciate what social websites given us. I especially appreciate Facebook, which allowed me to keep in touch and even find old friends I’ve lost contact with at one point. However, part of me still misses the time of letter-writing. I do hope that everyone, at least at one point of their lives, experienced the joy of writing letters to their friends. 

The letters I've kept for over ten years!