Letters, letters, letters.

I am a big fan of letters. If you know me or read this blog very often, you might already know that... I still write letters sometimes. I mail letters to people. I work with letters. I have read books full of letters of famous people and made-up people and nursery rhyme animals. I've loved letters since I was little. Not e-mails, mind you, but letters. Handwritten, preferably. E-mails are okay, but can have a lot less of a personal feeling to them sometimes. Handwritten letters have more than words in them. They have scribbles in the margins where the writer thought maybe the pen was running out of ink, they have crossed out words in the middle, they have cursive handwriting that gets more difficult to read the more emotional the writer gets, they have drawings in them, they have misspellings that the author didn't know were misspelled because there is no spell check except the author's own brain, they can be written on unique stationary or on the back of a receipt from a restaurant. They're amazing and fun and sometimes, kept for years and years. I love the human element of these letters.

When I am angry at something or frustrated with a situation, I often write letters to try to deal with the situation. I rarely give the letters to the person. I keep them for a few days and then usually get rid of them. I used to give them to people. My father can probably attest to the letters he and my mom used to get when I was upset or had my feelings hurt. I would scrawl a letter in my little grade-school handwriting and leave it in their room for them to find later. Usually kind of saying things like, 'You really hurt my feelings!', etc. I also used them to try to explain my actions. The best one I remember was a letter I wrote when I was about 13 and I would get home from school and hang out for a couple of hours before my parents would get home from work. I discovered that I could blast the stereo in the living room and pretend like I was a gymnast and race down the hall and into my parents' room and use their bed as a vault and do flips and it was pretty fun. I got major air a few times. Eventually, after days of doing this, the vault broke. That was an apology letter...kind of. It was sort of an 'Ooops' with a 'Huh..your bed just broke by itself' kind of fib letter that totally didn't work out. At any rate, I still write letters and probably always will. I like it better than journal writing. 1) letters are easier to throw out when you're over the problem and 2) blank journals are kind of intimidating in that it feels like you have to write in them pretty regularly. But no matter how you do it, writing out the problems and hurt feelings and confusion or explanations of actions in a letter meant for a certain person seems to make it easier to get over something. And you never have to give it to them if you don't want to. If you do decide to confront the person, you have already worked out some of your points that you want to make. It's win/win. I don't like confrontation, but I dislike feeling angry even more than that. Sometimes the anger is more at yourself than at the person. Writing a letter can help clear up the confusion. And, sometimes, make it glaringly obvious that what you're mad about is incredibly petty and maybe you end up laughing at the absurdity of it all when you re-read what you just wrote. It has always helped to put things into perspective for me. Maybe for you, as well? Long live the handwritten note.

If you like writing letters too, or have a penchant for reading them, make sure you check out website "Letters of Note". It has some very cool letters and stories to go with them some days.