The times, they are a changin'...

I have a confession, (I seem to be doing that a lot!), I am a Facebook junkie. It's true, I need to check my Facebook to see what is going on in the world around me. Who would have thought 20 years ago that their would be something called a social network? Who thought 5 years ago that an online site called Facebook would bring so many people together?

I currently have just over 300 friends on Facebook. I have known some my whole life, some since I was 5, friends from college, and new friends that I have known a short time. I find it amazing that I am able to share my life with my grandma, keep up with friends from Kindergarten, and hear about what is going on in the lives of my children's friends. I am also able to connect with distant relatives on a level I would never have been able to otherwise. This is perhaps my favorite type of friend.

Recently I noticed a difference in the age groups that I Facebook with. I find that several of my older friends still use a greeting and/or a complimentary closing (love, sincerely) in their status updates. My young friends on the other hand use texteese (my word for texting language, c wht I mne). I often wonder what my grandma thinks of things my kids post, and if she can read their language. What a blessing that they are able to have this type of connection.

A few weeks ago I spent some time sorting through some old letters I had kept. The majority were from high school, but there were some from college and when I was much younger. What possessed me to save some of them I do not know. There were stories of boys, boys, and did I mention boys? But there were also letters from my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. I find tears in my eyes as I hold the paper that was held by my grandmother, and goosebumps at the site of her hand writing. They are all treasured.

I worry about what my children will have in this age of technology and the keyboarded word. They definitely will not have as many handwritten letters as I do. Fortunately there have been some teachers in their lives that still understand the importance of the written word, specifically letters. As assignments, they have been asked to write to a relative. I have made sure to save them for their scrapbooks. One special letter was from my grandmother to my youngest son. I also have the letter he wrote to her first, that my grandmother had saved. It is wonderful reading both sides of the story. She tells him about when her brother died at a very young age, his senior year in high school. More recently my youngest son came home from church camp. He pulled some paper from his pocket. It was a letter from my mom he had received that week. It had survived camp, and made its way home. It was something treasured. It is tucked away safe until I can put it in his scrapbook.

Letter writing is a dying art. I don't think it can be totally saved in the form it once had. But I definitely think it is worth a shot. Write a letter to someone you love this week. Really write it, go buy a stamp, and send it in the mail.  Slip a note onto the pillow of your spouse, or into the lunch box of your child. Create those memories that can be treasured.