Correspondence

    I hail from the sliver of a teenage generation who mailed letters while also using dial-up internet to send emails. They call us Xennials. While I have the independent nature of Gen X, my lifestyle preferences lean Millennial. 

    As a girl, I had boxes of stationery and wrote to friends around the country as well as a pen pal in Spain and one in England. I even corresponded with a sailor on the U.S.S. Fife during Operation Desert Storm. While perhaps not the best practice for young girls to write military personnel, it was a helpful tool for my young mind to better grasp the conflict in the middle east. 

    In my later teens, my AOL Instant Messenger account connected me with friends from around the country in texting fashion. Oh, the days of cryptic away messages and angsty "will-he-won't-he message me tonight?"

    While still a fan of tech (this, after all, is a blog post), I am returning to a slower fashion of communication with letter writing. All in keeping with my 2025 word of the year: tangible.

    I went online and ordered my cute manatee stamps (oh so millennial of me to care about aesthetics) and I'm excited to invest in stationery crafted by Florida artists. 

    There is something magical about receiving mail - not bills, not flyers, not political mudslinging mailers, but a message hand lettered for just you. 

    Give me my apps, my GPS, and my wifi, but let me also slow it down with film photography, archiving, nature journaling, and letter writing. Perhaps it's unrealistic to desire convenience and nostalgia, but this Xennial is shooting her shot.