Courtship Letters

Looking through old files the other day, I ran across one containing letters between my husband and me in the first year of our relationship, especially from one summer when he was away for a couple of months visiting his family across the world. This was over 35 years ago, so reading the letters gave me that strange, unsettling but enjoyable “time travel” feeling. I have written here before (6/5/11) about my mom’s and my discovering old letters written to our parents by my brothers and me when we were in boarding school, and about how unfortunate it is that people seldom write letters any more. Yes, we email, and I love email, but it is not the same as receiving a handwritten letter in one’s mailbox, and then perhaps years later rediscovering the letter in one’s files or drawers. In any case, the letters between my husband and me from so long ago took me back to a time when we were young (our mid-twenties), and reminded me of the excitement, romance, and intensity of the early days of courtship. Since he and I have been together ever since, we haven’t had many occasions to write letters over the years, so these letters are very special to me.