One of my goals for this year is to send more letters.

Call me old fashioned (which I occasionally am), but there is something so wonderful about both writing and receiving letters.

The most mundane observations about life seem thoughtful and interesting when written out by hand. Describing the weather in an email? Boring and then some. Describing the weather in a handwritten letter? Lyrical and soothing.

Not that I’m not a fan of more instant forms of contact — I love being able to share, send, text, chat, and every other form of communication out there, and I regularly have running conversations going with my husband, best friend, sister, mother-in-law, and other loved ones on several platforms at once.

But I also have a box of 20+ years’ worth of letters stashed on a top shelf in my closet, and whenever anyone asks one of those what-would-you-save-in-a-fire questions, it’s the first thing that comes to mind.

Anyone who loves history knows the value of writing things down.

And anyone who has ever opened their mailbox to find a surprise note tucked in among the bills and catalogs knows the joy of realizing that not only was someone thinking of you, they took the time to sit down and write it out.

I know we won’t become more productive if we start sending more letters. (Because oof, can they eat up an hour or two.) But maybe we’d all be a little happier.