Return to Sender

Shortly after I started this project, I realized that my project was just that...MY project, not everyone else's project. Although the letter writing process takes considerably more time than phone calls, e-mailing and texting, in the long run, it all happens fairly quickly. I write a letter and mail it off. A friend or family member gets the letter and writes me back...it all takes a week or two. Especially if we haven't seen or talked to one another for awhile, we generally catch up our lives in those two letters. Then what?


Like I said, this is my project. Just because I wanted to write a lot of letters this year, doesn't mean everyone I know wants to write a lot of letters or that they have time to do so. If I send off a speedy second letter, my letter's recipient might feel obligated to write again, even if he or she doesn't have time or much to say.

As I searched for more and more people to write to, I tracked down the addresses of "old" friends and acquaintances, many of whom I've never heard back from. Maybe my letters were lost in the system; maybe they just didn't have anything to say in reply. In all fairness, some of the letters went to people I haven't seen or heard from since high school.

All that is to say that I soon began looking for other people to write letters to. That's how I found the pen pal blogs, Web sites and forums. I've made some lovely new friends this way and have written a lot of letters without overburdening my close friends and family with too many letters.

Yesterday, after all these months of writing letters, I got a "Return to Sender" notice. I sent out a card and an introductory note to a girl whose name and address I found on sendsomething.net. She's probably been too busy with her life to update her profile, and I know that's always a chance I take when send off a letter to a stranger.

The most amazing thing to me (besides the fact that the old-fashioned "Return to Sender" rubber stamp is still used) is that I've only received one such notice. I've sent out so much mail, I wouldn't have been surprised to have gotten more returned letters.

Making more letter writing friends

A few weeks ago, I responded to the "Receive Free Post" offer at Post Letters! It's a blog campaign to promote better letter writing.

According to the blog,

"Post Letters is a UK-based, worldwide movement to encourage, promote and take delight in the activity of writing letters and sending post. Both a call to action and a description of our time, Post Letters needs your help.

We bring people together to think about Post in the Twenty First Century, organise letter readings and writings, present you with new ideas for your post, commission artists and writers to produce new mail art, produce Post Events and much more besides."

I received my mailing last week...a sheet of paper decorated with leaves cut out of a variety of papers. It was quite elegant.

Since the purpose of Post Letters! is to encourage people to write more letters, I used that paper to write a letter to a person I found on sendsomething.net, an online list of "Mail Enthusiasts" who love to receive things in the mail. I let the recipient know where the paper came from. I even recycled the envelope from Post Letters! and used it to mail my letter to the sendsomething.net pen pal.

I just find it so interesting that there are so many sites out there dedicated to letter writing!