Express Mail

When was the last time you received a letter by snail mail? I bet it must have been quite some time already. I myself do not receive letters anymore via PhilPost, save for the occasional bank statements. Which is sad, because I grew up gingerly writing down my thoughts on carefully selected stationery and sending letters by post. When pretty paper kept me from writing down my message lest I ruin it, I would switch to pad paper so that I could write away without worrying about aesthetics.

By the time I reached my teens and early 20s, the lowly mailman was no longer knocking on my door that often. In fact, my visits to the post office were reduced to zero. E-mail and text messaging were more economical and efficient means of communication. And it didn’t help that the green movement has been advocating paperless communication for years now.

Thus when I resigned from my highly stressful job last November, I noticed that it had been quite some time since I last visited the post office or received a handwritten letter in my mailbox. That was when I decided to start writing again, mainly to the person closest to me, my boyfriend.

Since I was going to job interviews weekly, I found myself within the vicinity of post offices. I wrote my first handwritten letter in years to my boyfriend, and sent it via Express Mail. Also known as DEMS (Domestic Express Mail Service), it costs P40 with the promise that your letter will be delivered within three to four days, compared to P7 regular mail which reaches its recipient in a week’s time. I was excited to attach the stamps on the envelope, and I left the post office wondering when he would receive it.

Sure enough, after four days, my boyfriend received my letter, which basically thanked him for being helpful and nice to me. It floored him, because he was not raised to write and receive letters via snail mail. He is also not the writing kind of guy; he is accustomed to sending me e-mails and texts all the time. He responded through his customary channels of communication.

A week later, I sent him another letter via Express Mail. And every week thereafter, I sent him a new piece of handwritten openness. I kept him posted on my job-hunting, my domestic life, and my hopes for myself. It felt good to share my thoughts in writing, as it felt natural for me since I have been doing it all my life. I wrote down things that I couldn’t say face to face or on the phone because I turn bungisngis (giggly) whenever I feel nervous about saying something serious or cheesy. Writing freed me from this limitation.

Writing made our relationship grow. Not long after I started sending him letters by mail, my boyfriend began writing me longer e-mails in response. Our weekly dates soon became more than just a gastronomic bonding experience (we’re both foodies). We discussed the things we wrote in our letters, me on my handwritten ones, and he on his electronically rendered and sent ones.

It became a game of sorts for us. He waited for my letters, and read them in a flash. He would respond to my letters via e-mail and text, and it would then be my turn to read his take on the issues that I brought up and the matters at hand. Since we are both selective job-hunters, we got to attend interviews during weekdays and discussed our options during our weekend dates.

Job-hunting is another story altogether, and I can say that our multimedia exchange of correspondence made us both stronger as we became each other’s backbone. We exchanged more than words. We exchanged ideas and supportive messages. We exchanged opinions and learned to respect our differences.

Amid all of these, we found love to be more than just dating and updating statuses on each other on Facebook. Love became an exchange of meaningful communication and unwavering trust. Through these letters, we became very good friends. And we have thoroughly enjoyed the process that is ongoing until now.

Much to my surprise, my boyfriend gave me a handwritten letter one time. It was followed by another, and still another, until it became a regular occurrence as he brought me home after a long day spent at the mall. His letters became more refined and I enjoyed watching my non-writing beau grow as a writer and storyteller.

After dinner on his last birthday, he gave me his usual letter envelope. Inside it was a small drawing he made of a sunset, with birds flying away in the horizon. He told me to interpret its message, and it made me smile to realize how far we have come as a couple. With that art work, he proved to me that messages don’t have to be expressed in words and punctuations. It could be as simple as a lovingly drawn picture, illustrating his feelings and hopes for us.

My snail-mailed letters get to him in four days, supposedly sent express. Does this make my message slower in being received and interpreted than an e-mail or a text message? Whenever I read a text message or an e-mail, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has successfully reached me unless I have interpreted its content. Communication does not rest solely on speed and efficiency. What matters most is that the message properly reaches its recipient, and is well understood. And in the case of pictures and drawings, they could move somebody to go beyond words in order to understand love and real friendship.

We cannot say now how our letters will develop and what’s next for us. In the meantime, we will continue to write, draw and dream. And we will never stop understanding each other.

Samantha Gail B. Lucas, 24, is looking for a corporate job. She graduated with a degree in AB Humanities from the University of Asia and the Pacific in 2008.