The Joy of Snail Mail

A few weeks ago I had a terrible migraine. What cheered me up that day was a postcard from a friend in the United States. Sometimes it's the small things that matter, even something as simple as a postcard waiting for the reciever in the mail box.

For me, since I've hand pen friends for over 15 years, it is a certain joy in both sending and recieving letters and/or postcards. There is something about sitting down reading what your friend has written and taking the time handwriting something in return. In this fast paced reality that a lot of us live in, I find it a bit soothing and relaxing having some nice letter sets in front of me while I write a letter. At the moment, I'm lucky enough to have pen friends from several continents and I do find it interesting to learn about the different lives through snippets written down on a piece of paper. Another good thing about writing handwritten letters is that you need to slow down and actually THINK when you write that letter, so it is in a sense a pratice of mindfulness, while you at the same time get the chance to make someone get a smile on their face when they see that your letter/postcard is in their mail box (and hopefully sooner or later you are the one standing there smiling by the mailbox).

But how do I get pen friends, you might ask? Well, there's a lot of options. Facebook groups are one place, but some of the web sites where I've been fortunate enough to get some long lasting pen friends from are Sendsomething.net, Swap-Bot, Postcrossing, Postcard United and A Month of Letters Challenge. Feel free to check those web sites out if you're interested.

Do you have any pen friends? If so, what do you like about having them?