The Dying Art of Letter Writing

Last night I was invited to a dinner party at a Professor's house from my Undergraduate days. It was a pot luck dinner for the English faculty at A.I.C, including some retired staff, most of the people I haven't seen since I graduated two years ago.

I was delighted to spend the evening with company that I have always held in such high regard and enjoy conversation about theater, music and literature. Towards the end of the night, the party dwindled down to six people, and they began discussing how each had met their spouses, and the courtship rituals that each had gone through. I, on this subject, was merely a listener, I can barely hold down a boyfriend, let alone husband. They all began to discuss how each had written love letters, and had held onto each precious memento.

As I sat in the large living room by the fire place, in my Professor's renovated Victorian house, with all the artifacts from all the various countries that she has lived in, I too began to lament the loss of letter writing. How personal it is, to receive pages upon pages, of another person's thoughts. These letters are physical records of a person's life, memories, hopes and dreams.

Yet, me and my generation, have the text message, and while it is not as nearly romanticized as the letter it does have it's benefits. For one, there is no long waiting period for the letter to physically cross the country, we can have instance gratification from cell phone to cell phone. For two, it can be just as romantic, and it is possible to keep text messages forever. For example, I have one from my ex-boyfriend that I can't part with:
"For what it's worth though Denise...I love you the way you are. To me you'll always be perfect. :-)"

No, it's not sixteen pages, like the first letter one of the couples had received from his wife, it doesn't even take up the full 160 characters but it's enough to still have an emotional impact on me.

Perhaps if I was to divulge this information to the English faculty, they would just have sighed and shaken their heads, feeling pity for me and my electronically fused world. And perhaps they're right, I will never know the anticipation of waiting at a mailbox, but I do know the anticipation of waiting for my phone to light up with a call or text. They're not exactly the same, but deep, deep down, they have the same significance.