Call Me Old-Fashioned...

I love handwritten things. Yesterday I sent a birthday card to my cousin, and three postcards to friends. These are friends I talk to online quite often, but I still need to occasionally send handwritten things to them. I have recipe cards that are covered in oil and bits of sugar and I cherish them because they are in my grandmother's handwriting.

I especially love my handwritten journal. I have 5 blogs, a livejournal, facebook, twitter, myspace (though I haven't signed on there in months... who really uses myspace these days?) I still keep a paper journal. I keep it with me always. I pull it out when I feel alone, when I feel talkative and no one is around to listen. I pull it out when I need comfort, when I need a shoulder. I pull it out when I want to remember to tell someone something, or when I have a blog idea. Somewhere in it there is an entry that says "write about how much you like handwritten things".

I wrote in my journal as a very young child. I have every journal I have owned since middle school. I keep them in the trunk my grandmother gave me. The trunk her belongings were sent home in when she returned from Germany just before she found out she was pregnant with my father. She gave me the trunk years ago when I promised to help her move. I still have the travel tags from it, though you can't read them anymore.

I have kept notes friends sent me in high school, middle school. I have a note my dad gave me with a pair of earrings he gave me for Christmas when I was 13. I don't have the earrings anymore, but I have that note. I have the tags off of the last Christmas present my grandmother gave me. I literally have totes of sentimental scraps of paper covered in words handwritten by my loved ones.

I love the shapes of handwritten letters. I love the slight imperfections. I admire beautiful lettering done by hand. I love how it feels to run a pen across a piece of paper. I write sometimes when there is nothing to write about, just to see the letters on the paper.

Am I old-fashioned? Maybe... but if I must, I alone will keep the paper industry in business...