I wonder if bloggers that make friends online used to be the kids with pen pals.
I am and I did.
I had 3 pen pals as a child to be exact.
A boy from the Philippines
A girl from Austria
and Anne from Grenoble, France.
I miss them and wish we would not have lost touch. Unfortunately, life and jobs and marriage and kids and a home get in the way of leisurely letter writing.
They were great at opening my eyes to the larger world.
I like to think that I am open-minded and can think globally. Some of that I owe to those lovely children that wrote to tell me about their daily lives in far away places from Omaha, Nebraska.
As an adult with my child nearly grown, my home quiet and serene, my career plodding along on auto-pilot; I am able to spend more leisure time on the things I love. Crochet. Tea. Cats. Interwebz. On this global connection I have found many new pen pals. And all grown up too. I have the most lovely online friendships through WP and blogging. Some as close as Kansas and others as far from boring old Omaha as South Africa and Australia. There are common threads among us all that bind us together in so many ways.
Some of my blog-pals and I have exchanged notes and tokens of appreciation outside the web, and each time it feels like that old familiar thrill of receiving a letter as a child.
~this was a recent one from Tamara~
Although blogging is like an open letter to anyone that stops by, it can also be as personal as a pen pal letter written in 1979. When the common threads are found, we go back to read more and to share. And in the end, we find a lovely group of people that just “get” us, and we just “get” them, and it’s pretty awesome.
Cheers to you, my bloggy pen-pals. I like you. I really, really like you.
yarnchick 
What a sweet post! I too had pen pals as a child and am grateful for all the people I have come to know in the blogging community.
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🙂
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I had never made the connection before but I have had in the past and still now have penpals and I love making friends through blogging…there should be a study on it! Lol.
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Yeah, I’s study us. We’re pretty awesome. 🙂
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A girl from Malaysia, Corinne from France – how could I forget?! When I was young there was nothing like receiving one of those precious letters. Your lovely blog post is like a trip into the past. Thank you 🙂
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You are very welcome. 🙂
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“letters and envelopes” – it’s amazing how quickly those hand-written items have almost disappeared from our lives. I used to love running to the letterbox at the end of our street in Blackpool when I was a little girl, with something my gran wanted posting.
The other day a 19-yr old student who rents an apartment round the corner told me that her boyfriend wants to send her something in the post. She made it sound like the poor chap was into freaky in a big way. Then she asked me how to tell him what her address is, because “addresses” usually means there’s a “gmail.com” at the end as opposed to the name of a suburb and a post code.
Made me feel like a throwback to the middle ages….. 🙂
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Oh my! What a reality check!
Maybe if you’d share your address again with me you could run to the letterbox with some excitement.
Hint Hint. Not to be pushy or anything…
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I hadn’t made the connection to blogging either, but it’s so true! I truly enjoy your blog and those of others too. You’re right – it IS kind of like blogging. we get to know the blogger as we share in their life and at some point they begin to feel like family. We connect in a different manner, but the connection is there. Thank you for sharing your life with us!
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Ya made me smile on a rough day for me, and for that I thank you as well Miss Liz.
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Hi Lisa! Oh my gosh I loved your post about pen pals. I don’t believe I ever had one as a child, but I did write to my cousins from time to time. I loved seeing the picture of the things that I sent to you; I love that we have such a connection with so many people from around the world. 🙂 Love and Hugs, Tamara
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We really do make some neat connections and I am thankful that you are in my world 🙂
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I had pen pals when I was a kid. A girl from Philippines. I was really nice, writing to each other like that. Sometimes, I missed the feeling when I received those letters, or greetings card like the old time.
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It IS awesome, and I really like you, too. 😉 I went to university in Grenoble. It was actually on the return trip to the States that I met who would be my first real penpal (in the sense of getting to know each other through letters, as opposed to keeping up with old friends) — an elderly gentleman from Indiana. We wrote letters for over a decade. The last letter I received was from his wife — he had suffered a stroke and was too ill to write, but dictated a letter to me. I never did hear exactly when he passed away. I miss him.
I like the correlation between blogging relationships and the old-fashioned penpal.
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