Loving letters

When lacking ideas for new blog posts, I try to revisit my first ever post, which outlines some of the resolutions I vowed to fulfil this year. I thought I might tackle the resolution to write somebody who lives far away a long letter or a short postcard.
 
It got me thinking about the last letter I had received or indeed written (not counting the letter to my enemy, from a post back in January). The last letter I wrote was to a friend in Germany. I decided I'd write her a letter as I had long ago promised to send her a book I was reading while I was in Berlin. What was interesting was how unnatural it felt to pen an old fashioned letter. I didn't even pen it. I typed it. And, I should also add, it was a boring letter. It had none of the immediacy, and therefore none of the wit of an email. Emails I can do. Emails I'm damn good at.

I was in a relationship about five years ago which was enacted almost entirely over email. We met through a mutual friend, and, being a couple of years younger than me, this lad thought it appropriate to conduct a courtship over email. Then followed a six month romance spanning close to ten emails a day. We were funny, sometimes banal, often entertaining and always flirtatious. We were good over email. What we weren’t so good with was real life. We broke up on a Friday night over some uncomfortable beers in a dire city pub. And I was fine with it, really I was. It was only on Monday when faced with my empty mailbox, did I sob like a child. I missed those emails more than I missed my boyfriend. About a month later, I decided to print out all the emails we'd sent each other and give them to him as a dossier of our romance. It sounds kind of creepy on reflection, but, re-reading that correspondence helped me get over my moderate heartache and revel in some of our cleverer one liners.
 
The email romance was really as close as I have come to writing or receiving love letters in the traditional sense. However, since I am an unashamed sucker for anything sentimental, I did keep most of the correspondence from my first relationship. My first relationship didn't happen until I was 19. By age 21, we were living together. In the bloom of first love, and with the thrill of play acting as adults, we used to write little notes to each other - mostly with domestic instruction, but always led with, or followed by, an endearment.

'I'll get the milk. Love K'.

'Babe, at Dan's place. Love L'.

This was before text messaging made everything so damn easy. And so clinical. Whilst I'm thankful that 'babe' is no longer an acceptable term of affection, it's depressing to think I don't know what my last two boyfriends' handwriting looks like. Whereas, L's handwriting is unmistakeably imprinted in my mind.

My first boyfriend was married recently. I sent him an email to say congratulations. Now, though he doesn't actually live that far away (Sydney), I think I'll write him a short postcard to wish him a happy marriage. Maybe he remembers my handwriting too. Hopefully he's long forgotten that we used to call each other 'babe'.