Lost secrets of the blue enveloped letter

While technology has made things easier to access, it has also drastically impacted the dating scene. The beginnings of a lifetime commitment can now be traced back to a poke or swipe on social media. Funnily enough, it can also define the end of that very promise as well. Lost are the charms, bittersweet heartaches, and relevance when a blue enveloped letter arrived in the lover's name. 

So, what is the big deal with this blue enveloped letter you ask? Everything and nothing, at a time when people did not have Facetime, or even discover the vastness of the world wide web. A time when lovers torn by distance, familial disputes or any other reason found solace and hope in handwritten letters, filled with feelings of emptiness, solitude, and a longing to be with the other, to always love and cherish each other when they finally became a part of the same life till the ends of time. 

Imagine the days, sometimes months, of a bleeding heart cured by the arrival of a single blue enveloped letter in your name. Oh, the excitement, right? Those emotions of happiness and utter bliss related to storing all those letters in a box hidden away from prying eyes and nosey little siblings; reading them over and over again, till you fell asleep or in secret, to make the days go by faster until you saw one another again; counting how many times he/she wrote your name or professed his/her undying love to you on that piece of parchment.

Think about spending hours feigning industry at the study table, trying to figure out the best reply.

My late maternal grandmother would often tell us stories of how every time she would write to my grandfather (who happened to be a teacher by profession and travelled a lot for work) and in response, he would always send her two letters. The first would be his reply and the second would include the letter that she had sent, with all the spelling and grammatical errors marked and corrected.

In a world where there is power in acknowledging someone's text or not, we have forever lost the practice of selflessness and unconditionality that once upon a time summed up a love embodied within carefully chosen words in a blue paper casing. Today's romances are enveloped in vanity; a check-in there, a post on Instagram with carefully chosen hashtags, and a selfie or relationship update to announce to the world of new beginnings.

Can today's generation of romancers really fathom or even believe in a love to be simple, undemanding, resilient, patient in nature without a hefty price tag attached to it?

Photo: Collected