The Struggles of Sending Snail Mail

by - 9:17 PM


Recently Kanra from The Lunar Descent and I started sending each other snail mail. E-mails and texts are nice and all, but nothing can beat the excitement I feel when I see an envelope or postcard with my name on it lying on the doormat. The mailman coming to our house is one of the most exciting things I know.
Okay, that sounds more pathetic than it did in my head, but believe me: it's awesome to receive snail mail. Just the fact that someone has taken time out of their day to sit down and put pen to paper for you makes snail mail so much more special than e-mail. That a letter travelled all the way from Pakistan to the Netherlands is kind of mind-blowing. Yeah, snail mail is great. But that doesn't mean sending it is easy. There are four major struggles when it comes to snail mail. Let me explain.

1. Writing a letter
I've heard some people say that writing letters is a lost art. They are not wrong. What do you write to someone you text all the time? If something big happens, I text Kanra. If something small happens, I text Kanra. I text Kanra even if nothing happens. A Dutch duck can't swim across the pond without my Pakistani blog buddy knowing all about it. So I sit at my desk, staring at a blank piece of paper and usually end up texting Kanra instead of writing something on that piece of paper that was supposed to be a glorious letter but looks more like an empty piece of paper. What do I write to someone who already knows everything you have to tell? Simple:
"Dear Kanra, I don't know what to write about in this letter"
Honestly, my letters are of such great quality, they'll blow your socks off *wildly waves sarcasm sign*

2. Adding awesomeness
When I was a kid, my pen pal was already glad I took the time to write her a letter. If I wanted to make her really happy, I just had to write it on the fancy paper with illustrations of a mouse on it.
Nowadays my pen pal is a blogger and bloggers generally have higher standards than ten-year-olds. Especially when it comes to snail mail. Some add glitters and stickers and illustrations that look like they belong in a museum. Others add dried flowers or leaves or surprises. Then I come along with zero inspiration and basically do this:


3. Buying stamps
Buying stamps is the biggerst struggle of them all. Here's the thing: I have tons of stamps at home, but apparently I need "internation stamps" if I want to send the letter I worked so hard on to Pakistan. To the post office!
By the way, the post office is on the other side of town. It's usually raining. And my only way to get there is by bike. Hurray. At the post office, I discovered that the stamps I had at home were just fine, I only had to add a "priority" sticker to them if I wanted to use them. Not the thing you want to hear after cycling three kilometers in the rain. And so I left with, but with a pack of overpriced stamps in my pocket, because there was no way I was going home empty handed and I didn't want to cycle to the post office in the months to come. On the bright side: my new stamps have cows and windmills on them.


4. Hoping and praying your letter will arrive
You've done it all: you've written a letter, added some extra awesomeness to it, put stamps on the envelop... Now you have one more struggle ahead of you. It's the most nerve-wrecking part of the process. You post your letter and then... you wait!
Days go by. Nothing, no text from your friend to tell you that your letter has arrived. Days become a week, two weeks. "Any mail today?" you text. "How about today?" 
The more time passes, the more nervous I get. What if someone lost my letter? What if it never arrives? It's scary, but the probability of letters disappearing makes me appreciate snail mail even more. Good thing that we've got text messages to ask each other if the mailman has stopped by yet.

Do I still love snail mail after these struggles? Of course I do. I love it with all my heart, even though the Slovenian mail service lost the post cards I sent to Pakistan. But that doesn't stop me from sending my blog buddies snail mail. It's way too awesome to give up on.

Stay Awesome!

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11 Fellow Ramblers

  1. Sending snail mail is awesome :) When I was younger I was really in to stamp collecting and that sort of thing so I did Postcrossing (the website gives you a random address, you send them a postcard, then your address gets given to a random person in another country) and it was very exciting for 17-year-old me (people always imagine I was about 10 when I talk about how excited I was :X).

    I can relate to getting nervous the more time passes. I always wondered, what happened in the past if someone sent you a REALLY important letter with lots of revelations and drama, and it got lost? Your life would be changed.

    Dutch stamps are really quirky, I sent some postcards home while I was briefly au pairing and I wanted to keep some just to look at them haha.. The stamps in Ireland are also very cool, they're always releasing special ones for different occasions but some are completely random, like characters from an animation studio, famous people, legends, etc. I'm happy there are other people who get so enthusiastic about snail mail :)

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    1. For some reason I was still logged in to the TBC account there, I think you can assume it was me (F) and not a statement by TBC in general :P

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    2. Yeah I thought it was you :) I had a friend in high school who did Postcrossing too. For a while I considered doing that, but then I realized I wouldn't know what to write to someone I don't know at all. Still I was pretty jealous of all postcards she got from people in Asia.

      You know what I keep wondering about? Where does all the lost mail go? I mean, one postcard doesn't attract much attention, but over time there must be piles of lost mail in those mail service places. Or not. I don't know where mail gets lost. I just know that it does, so I just text the really important things.

      I think the international stamps are awesome because they show the typically Dutch things :P I need a stamp with a legend or something on it now!

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  2. F! Let's send send letters to F too! :D
    Also, you text me when you wanna stalk someone xD and I end up texting you when I wanna rant about something :p #BlogBuddyLevel9K
    I don't think there's a stamp on my letter, right? I asked the people about stamps they said oh here's a stamp and stamped those ink stamps lol. I was kinda disappointed but I said eh ok if it gets the job done.

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    1. Let's send letters to everyone! :D
      Yeah, I kind of need you when I stalk people, you ask for all the important things while I get distracted by pictures xD We're blog buddy goals.
      There was no stamp on your letter, but at least the ink stamp had the shape of a stamp which is cool too. I mean, I went to the post office and got some things directly stamped there. What they do then is print out a bar code on a sticker and use that as a stamp. It's the ugliest and most disappointing thing I've ever seen as a stamp, and I've seen my king's head on stamps.

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  3. I love the this! I also get really excited when an envelope with my name on it pitches up at the front door! It's also nice that you've put your desire into action and that it's not just an idea.

    Steph //socialspying.blogspot.com

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    1. Thank you! It's so exciting to get real mail, isn't it? This is actually my third attempt at the pen pals thing and I hope this one will be more successful then the previous two (they ended after two letters), but three times's the charm isn't it?

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  4. I LOVE getting mail. its honestly the best thing in the world. but the biggest reason I dont is buying stamps. its so pathetic honestly because in the grand scheme of things, they really arent that expensive. but you know.

    I do send a lot of mail though. at least, I used to. quite a bit actually. and I loved it. I loved being able to make someones day by doing that.

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    1. Mail is one of the best ways to make someone's day. At least it is in my opinion.
      I don't send much mail either because of stamps. Not because they're expensive (they actually are quite expensive here), but because I have to go to the other end of town to buy them. One post office on 28.000 people is not an ideal situation :P

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  5. Haha the struggles are real! I send mail to Austria from usa and I always worry it will get mail lost.

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    1. So real! Mail from the US to Europe usually makes it, at least that's my experience, but it's nerve-wrecking no matter how many times you've sent something!

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