The Art of Letter Writing
One of the challenges of being a creative homemaker is finding inexpensive and rewarding hobbies in which to involve yourself. One hobby I've become involved with during the past year or so is the long lost art of letter writing (pen palling).
When I was a child, I always enjoyed receiving mail from friends and relatives. One year as an English assignment we were given the names of students our own age in foreign countries whom we exchanged letters with throughout the school year. I corresponded with two different students in Italy for several years. To this day I still have the letters, postcards, and photographs my pals sent to me. I was sad when we finally lost touch with each other. When I was in high school, my best friends and I wrote long notes to one another daily, telling each other our hopes and fears, pouring out our hearts to each other in the hopes that someone else could share in the trials and tribulations of our daily lives. After we graduated I threw away shoe boxes of letters my friends and I had written to each other throughout our junior high and high school years. Sometimes I wish I hadn't thrown all those memories away.
I didn't write letters again until years later, when I saw an ad for a pen pal newsletter in Freebies magazine. The idea of a pen pal newsletter intrigued me, so I sent away for a sample issue of Pal 'n Around. Through the pen pal listings in the Pal 'n Around newsletter, I was again introduced to the world of pen palling. I soon discovered there are many different types of people looking for pen pals, and almost as many types of pen pal newsletters.
By placing my own pen pal listing in several of these newsletters, I have already made several long-lasting friends I have been writing regularly to during the past year. My pals range in age from 23 to 73, all female. One is a young single mom, one is my age and single, and one has been married for almost 50 years. I have also been corresponding off and on with several other people from all walks of life. Every pen pal has a different story to tell, a different view on life to share. I find that I share different parts of my life with different people and enjoy telling them stories about my family and my dreams for the future.
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