A Whole Lotta Letters

As February approaches and I'm recuperating from my bout with the combination devil illness and super sadness that knocked me on my arse for a chunk of January, I’m prepping myself for a challenge.

Nothing involving physical training or food restriction~ those would be awful and unpleasant, and nobody needs that. And certainly not anything involving filming myself doing something idiotic like eating detergent. (Good grief, what is wrong with the world?)

Instead, I’m gathering my colorful pens and a sheet of Wonder Woman stamps as I get ready for a month of writing letters.

Yes, letters. Like the kind that you mail and are delivered by the postal service, and that nobody writes anymore, except maybe your grandma or your 5 year old niece who doesn’t have a phone yet. The kind that are personal and people are excited to see in their mailbox and unlike texts (or this blog post for that matter) generally use complete sentences and proper grammar.

(Ok, the last part about proper grammar may or may not happen in my letters. But, for some reason, it feels like my writings will be more likely to contain proper English if I write the words with a purple pen than they would if I typed them with my thumbs on a tiny screen. Maybe I'm just old fashioned that way...)

The official challenge is to to try to mail something every day that the post office works this coming month, and it’s actually a thing.

LetterMo started in a public way in 2011 and has taken off to the point where people from all over the world participate. There’s an official group with forums and a Facebook Page and all kinds of connections and support.

I won’t be doing all of that, because all I want to do is write letters. But still, it’s nice that it’s available.

For my version (because why not make your own version that suits you better?) not everything will be mailed, Some of my letters may be hand delivered, and one will be to my future self and will be stuck in the box of Christmas decorations in the attic to be discovered / opened Christmas 2018 (because that’s another thing I like to do, but didn’t get around yet~ so now’s the time...

Anyhoo, at first thought, the idea of adding any challenge of any kind to my life sounded like ridiculousness, but I’m actually liking the idea of this one.

Why?

Because it is a conscious way to slow down.

Because it gets my eyeballs off of screens and onto paper.

Because people like getting mail, at least when it isn’t a bill and especially if it has stickers on it, and I like making people smile.

Because it’s a chance to reach out and connect with people that I miss.

I'm not going to be heartbroken if I don't get 24 letters written, because any amount will be more than I would have written otherwise. Besides, it's not like there's a fine or some penalty for not getting it exactly right. I'm going with the philosophy of trying something different from my every day and enjoying the process. Whatever happens will be great.

If you’re interested in a month of writing letters too, go check out LetterMo. Or just get some pens and paper and start writing

Until next time~ Enjoy!