Communication the Old Way

As I walked back from my mailbox with an arm full of advertisements, bills, and junk, it dawned on me that I haven't received a good, old-fashioned letter in ages!  Come to think of it, I haven't received a letter vial email in quite some time either!  We seem to have allowed social media to become our primary form of communication and that, frankly, breaks my heart!

What ever happened to sending a friend a simple card?  When did a heart-felt "hello!  I was thinking about you" go out of fashion?  Why have we descended into this culture that embraces the hollow and superficial environment of social media to be the mode of interaction that we so often utilize?  Even talking on the telephone has taken a backseat to texting!

Look in your email inbox.  If yours is like mine, you see a lot of spam, but very few messages from people you actually want to hear from.  Take that even further and ask yourself when you last received a real, honest-to-goodness, paper letter?  Would you recognize the handwriting of a friend or family member?  I remember a time, not so long ago, when I wouldn't need to see the name or address of the sender, but would know who had taken the time to write to me just by their penmanship.  Oh, and don't even get me started on the death of cursive.  Just another casualty in the digital age of shallow communication!

So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dust off some cherished letters from my grandmother and read them all over again and when I'm done, I'm going to send a letter of my own to my mother and my sisters and my brothers and my children, and maybe a card or two to a friend....just for old times' sake!