letters and diaries

I have been keeping diaries more or less regularly since I was 7 years old. But for a while back in secondary school, my diaries were not quite that important to me, as I also had pen pals - at most about 40 of them at once! This meant that on most days, there would be at least one letter waiting for me when I got home from school. I would save all my letters in binders or in empty letter set packs. After I left home, and due to the many changes of address that followed, I slowly lost touch even with the most long term of my pen pals. And at the same time I guess that other kinds of communication took over for letter writing. Still, living in my first college dorm,  all of the other girls in my dorm would be jealous because of the amount of mail I'd receive every week.

Today, I'm back to keeping diaries. And my two blogs, of course. This does, to some point, answer to my need of putting things down in words. But still, writing blog posts aimed at whoever might stumble over them is not the same as writing someone a personal letter. Also, it often feels more than a bit one-way... I remember having written before about how much I miss letter writing. I miss writing  my letters by hand, but this is about more than forming words and sentences and getting them on paper  - I also miss waiting for the answer, not knowing when to expect it, and the joy of finally receiving it. Not to mention finding the letters decades later! Plus adding stuff to the actual letter. I particularly remember exchanging cassette tapes somewhere around the mid-90s...*

I wonder if its still possible to find old-fashioned, pen-on-paper penfriends somewhere. I mean, with all of the other brand-new-retro trends around, it wouldn't even surprise me too much. I should probably check this out. But for now, I guess I'll stick to my diaries and social media.

Why do I feel like somebody's grandmother when I write things like this?



*this was actually how I discovered for example the Stone Temple Pilots and RATM, and also how I got familiar with the Finnish bands CMX and Apulanta...