Letter Box

In my heart, I’m the kind of person who buys birthday cards well in advance and sends them out early to everyone on my list. In reality, I race to the store to buy a card and hope it gets there on time. I’m pretty sure this makes me a normal human being. While I do, on occasion, manage to get it right, I’ve always wanted to do better.

Why? Well, for one thing, I want to keep the art of letter writing alive. I think we’ve lost touch with meaningful connection. Thanks to technology, we’ve never had more access to the people in our lives, and yet, on a lot of levels, we’ve never felt more isolated or alone. To take the time to write a letter is such a simple gesture that literally has the power to make someone’s day. And while a letter is fun to receive, the source of connection is the thought that went into sending it.

Another reason I’d love to be more organized is simply because I want to make my life easier. I mean, this whole frantically running around trying to buy a card, stressing out because I hope it gets there on time, and then feeling bad about it is really not working for me. I’ve operated like this forever, and I’ve wanted to do something about it forever, but I guess I just chalked it up as one of those things that would never change.

That is until I found the motivation to take action in the unlikeliest of places: an antique store.

Okay, okay, that’s probably exactly where you’d expect me to find inspiration! Touché. A few weeks ago I found this old wooden box in an antique store in Connecticut. I fell in love with the woodwork—just look at that dovetailing! I’m not sure what kind of life it lived before I found it, but in that moment I instantly knew how it would reincarnate in my home.

I loved the idea of this letter box so much that I actually went to Paper Source and spent $75 on cards. Yes, that’s a lot of money, but it’s what I would’ve spent throughout the year. Now I’m armed with a card for every conceivable occasion, and there will be no more running around.

Honestly, it’s shocking how easy it was to make this happen. Go to store. Buy multiple cards. Pay for them. Folks, there’s a lesson in here: a lot of our suffering could be avoided by taking action in small, simple ways. That, and sometimes the drama we create in our minds about how hard something is going to be is ninety percent of the problem.

My letter box is stocked with cards, stationary, business envelopes, and stamps. I’m dying to send someone a card, but the next birthday on my list isn’t until February. So for now I’ll just stare at it and be reminded that change happens one small step at a time.

SHOP MY STYLE