Letters of Friendship Letters of Love

I spent a goodly portion of a recent Saturday, going through old letters. As I have mentioned before, my dh and I have pretty much held on to most of the letters we have ever received from friends and family and each other. In addition, not too long ago my dh's mother gave him a bag with all the letters he wrote to HER during his college years.

That adds up to a HUGE stack of letters. Hundreds I'm sure.

One of the boxes of letters had been sitting in my closet for a few years and I got to thinking "do we really need to hold onto this FOREVER?"

Evidenced by the fact that the letters have been in our possession forever, these were important and special letters from important (to us) and special people, during the 1980's and 1990's primarily (before the time of everyone having email).

But we have a small house with little storage space.

My dh agreed that it was time to part with many missives.

There was no way I could read every single letter before I decided to keep or pitch - but glancing at something, if it was basically a post card or "thank you" letter, it went into the discard pile. I tried to keep a sampling of letters from regular writers for each year and some writers had all their letters saved (I won't say whose - that way everyone can just assume it was all their letters we kept rather than pitched).

It was interesting, fun, sometimes sad, and in some cases enlightening, to re-read those letters...

We did hold on to enough of the letters (I hope) to give a sampling of our family/friend histories , as well as all the letters my dh and I wrote to each other.

As the letters sat for days in a trash bag in the laundry room - I had second thoughts. Did I really want to pitch them? What benefit was there in keeping them? Future blackmail opportunities? Email letters from the same folks today are not all being printed out and saved. When I'm 98 years old and bedridden (due to a broken leg mind you, from skiing) - would I pull out those dusty letters and enjoy reading them? Probably. But I guess I'll have to amuse myself with only reading 500 hundred letters rather than 1000. Not everything can be kept for every possible necessity - including memories.

I'm saddened over the end of letters written on beautiful stationery and posted in the mail. I'm part of that problem. It's so much easier and quicker to send someone an email. And the important part is not the mode of communication - it's the fact that we take the time to communicate in the first place, right?

Show and Tell Friday - End of An Era

Ah yes, some exciting photos of a computer paper box and file folders. I'm sure you've never seen the likes of that before have you?

Well it's what's in the boxes and folders and binders that are the real treasure. Problem is - I can't give you a closer peek. Oh, well I could - but then you'd be seeing some very personal information...not just about me - which I could choose to show - but information about the daily lives of those in our circle - that we love.

These are hundreds...maybe a thousand, I've never tried to count them - of letters written to me and to my dh ever since we were teenagers.

When I married my dh 12.5 yrs ago, I found out that he did the same thing that I did. He saved every letter (for the most part) he ever received... So these are stacks and stacks of letters written by our parents, our friends, our relatives and some penpals. These letters span a period of about 27 years.

Some of the letters are from people we loved, that have now died. Some are from people we are no longer in contact with. But nonetheless, all are or were a part of our lives at some point.

They are special for that reason, but also because those letters represent the end of an era, so to speak. The era of the written letter. Handwritten for the most part. With the arrival of computers and email - letters became quick notes, not lengthy epistles. Sure with email you get a quick as it's happening or happened account of something in someones' life. But it's not quite the same. You miss out on the (sometimes) beautiful paper it was written on, the (sometimes) beautiful handwriting...or just the familiar... Sometimes a newspaper article, or a comic or some little do-dad was included with the letters.

I believe in this stack is every single letter my dh wrote to me, and I wrote to him - beginning when he was 10 and I was 14. We lived 1000 miles apart and were "just friends" for most of those letter writing years. What a great written history we will have preserved for our children.

Reading the letters I wrote and sent to my dh is like reading a diary. Events that I have long forgotten are there in front of me.

This huge lot doesn't even show all the letters that were saved in scrapbooks and the letters that are still in our file cabinet (letters from the past year or so).

Do I save all the emails I receive? No. Sure they are saved in my "mailbox" - but they have not (for the most part) been printed off and saved "for ever".

What will I do with this huge collection of history? How will I preserve it? I don't know. But I want to figure something out. Some of the letters were laid flat, hole-punched and stored in binders.

I found this website just now, that talks about how to preserve old letters - they are specifically talking about war letters, but the same procedures works for any kind of letter. I haven't had a chance to go through all the information - but I will.

For more Show and Tell Friday items - check out There is No Place Like Home.