Reasons to Write Letters

As many of my friends know, I enjoy writing letters. Though email, texting, and a host of other media are instantaneous and easy ways to contact friends and family, I've put together a list of reasons why good old-fashioned letter-writing is my preferred method of communication. 

Some of the letters I've received over the past year

The wait is exciting. There might be weeks or months between letters. Yet I still check the mailbox every day in anticipation of a reply, because I know it's coming. Corresponding by mail can be an exercise in patience, but what a glorious day when that little envelope arrives!


It shows that you care. Writing and mailing a letter takes time. You're telling the recipient, "I spent time, effort, and forty-nine cents to get in touch with you. You matter." When I got back from Kansas, I had three handwritten letters awaiting my return, and I felt incredibly loved.


It's a great way to keep in touch. I'm a fan of Skype, and I enjoy making and receiving calls, but with jobs, events, and time zone differences, they are often difficult to coordinate. Letters can be written at your leisure. You can start a letter, then drive the soccer carpool and do the dishes, and pick up the pen later when things are less hectic.

You can get creative with them. Experiment with fun stickers, different stamps, and coordinating stationery. Tuck in prayer cards or other small gifts. I've received a rosary, origami birds, an Advent calendar, and Disney princess stickers along with letters. Recently, my friend Paige sealed her letter to me with wax! 

It's much more romantic than a good-morning text. Taking into account all of the above, sending a letter to your beloved requires time, effort, creativity, and care. A letter captures one's attention. Think of all the love stories where letters between romantic partners come into play. Marius' love letter to Cosette in Les Miserables moved her deeply:

"Each one of these mysterious lines shone before her eyes and inundated her heart with a strange radiance. [...] This manuscript of fifteen pages suddenly and sweetly revealed to her all of love, sorrow, destiny, life, eternity, the beginning, the end. It was as if a hand had opened and suddenly flung upon her a handful of rays of light. In these few lines she felt a passionate, ardent, generous, honest nature, a sacred will, an immense sorrow, and an immense despair, a suffering heart, an ecstasy fully expanded. What was this manuscript? A letter." 

Let me know if you can think of any more reasons to write letters! In the meantime, I need to finish packing. I head back to Steubenville for school tomorrow morning. Anyway, writing this post reminded me of a song by Jackie Francois, so feel free to listen to that below. God bless!