Reciprocation

I'm writing some postcards tonight, to five people around the world that I have never met. They are in Taiwan, Finland, the USA, Poland and Germany. The addresses have been given to me by a website I found the other day - www.postcrossing.com.

It's an experiment, and I don't know if these people will write back. But sometimes letter writing is like that.

Lately, I have had a lack of letters arriving in my own letterbox. Despite my industriousness, the reciprocation thing hasn't really been happening lately... and I was feeling a bit down about it because who doesn't love getting letters, right?

But then I realised something important and special about letter-writing. Sending someone a letter should be a gift that doesn't demand a response... or a time-frame in which the person should respond. If we find someone who likes to write letters, too, and they write back in a timely fashion, well that's lovely... but it doesn't always happen that way. So I need to just write my letters because I enjoy writing letters... not because I expect to receive something in return.

What do you think? Do you get miffed if your penfriends don't write back, or are you ok with being the crazy letter-writing friend?

Now... I wonder if any of my postcard recipients will write back, and we become regular correspondents. Hmmm, there's no guarantees... but I'm going to do it anyway.

Love from Kaz