#snailmailersoftumblr

[penpalling]

What about extras?

I found this on Pinterest and wanted to share it to know if you also like adding little extras to your letters. ✉️ Personally, I usually don’t include much — maybe a sticker, a postcard, or a teabag, but only with people I know well. Once, someone sent me expired teabags and, to be honest, it made me a bit upset. 😅 I prefer adding extras only when I really know the person and I’m sure they’ll appreciate it — and especially when I know what they’ll appreciate. 💌🌿

[penpalling]

Introducing ourselves

I hope that in this blog you will feel free to share your stories too! You can write your stories under this post or, if you want to keep your name anonymous, write me via PM!

Here I go... My name is Miryam, I was born in 1981 and I live under the blue skies of Italy. I started writing letters in high school, when our German teacher proposed us to write to students around the world who were learning German too.

My first pen friend wrote to me only once and then disappeared — and I remember feeling a little disappointed but still fascinated by the idea of connecting with someone far away through paper and ink.

So I decided to try again. This time, I wrote to girls my age whose pen pal ads I found in an old Italian teen magazine called Cioè. That’s how it all really began.

Since then, I’ve never stopped. Writing letters became a quiet habit, a safe place, and today is a way to keep a bit of magic alive in an increasingly digital world.

I really love colorful letters full of stickers and drawings, but I also (and mainly!) deeply appreciate the ones where only the pen speaks: pages full of words, where we tell our stories, discover each other, and open our hearts. I know everyone has their own way of writing letters: some people write long ones, others just a single page but filled with emotion. Some prefer to exchange only postcards, stamps, stickers, or teabags — there’s really a bit of everything! And that’s the beauty of it: everyone has their own way of communicating.

Over the years, I’ve even met some of my pen pals in real life. Some disappeared after the first meeting and never wrote again, some stayed good friends for a long time, and some still call or visit whenever they can. There have been happy stories, sad ones, touching ones. Friendships that started and ended, others that are still here. Sometimes we lose touch and find each other again, sometimes we choose not to.

But nothing stops me from writing, talking, sharing — from giving a little piece of myself (a sentence, a drawing, pages full of words) with someone who appreciates the time I give, and who does the same for me.