Love Letters (ladies only!!)

[Incorporeal13]

I'm not particularly good for advice on love letters, I just write whatever I feel and what comes to me on the spur of that moment instead of planning the letter out.
If you're looking for something out of the ordinary, I think a fun way to tell someone how much they mean to you is to get a 52 count deck of playing cards (maybe some vintage ones?) and on every card explain a reason why you love that person or what you miss about them. Maybe make a little collage on each card or paste on something special to the both of you.

 

[*martini*time*]

I don't know why you guys don't get paid for all this great advice!!lol

 

[MissAmelina]

"Care Packages" go a long way too....I have been in a few long distance relationships in my life, and was always big on sending boxes of homemade cookies along with thoughtful letters, photos, poems, drawings, etc etc.
That way, your boy has a tasty treat to remember you buy as he is reading your kind words. AND he will be the envy of all the other boys.

I used to send cookies almost every week to two men in particular (not at the same time, mind you.....don't want to sound like a floozie! A cookie trallop!) They were both VERY grateful...and their buddies thought I was the bees knees. It's nice to be on the level with the buddies.

 

[Babydoll]

When my husband and I were newly dating, he was working on a fishing boat up in Alaska. He had no internet connection, and the satellite phone onboard was outrageously expensive ($2+/minute!!), so we resorted to letters. He wrote to me every night after he got of work until he fell asleep. I wrote long letters (5-8 pages typed) while at work during my down time. I just wrote about all of the little things I was doing during my day... everything from getting new tires on the car to what I had for dinner. He loved it because he was included in my daily life.

As for care packages - mine made him famous on the ship. Fellas would follow him down the halls after mail call because they knew he got goodies from me, and that he would share. I sent Double Stuf Oreos, candy, jerky, a leaf from the maple tree that was changing colors, mix CDs of music that reminded me of him...... anything that would remind him of me and my love for him, really.

Before he left for that season, I put together a box (actually it was a lidded cardboard photo storage box) of cards and letters for him to read before my letters started to arrive. I also put in things like his favorite candy bar, something with the scent of my perfume on it, etc. It was like having me in a box with him. Eventually that box became his storage for all of the letters he received from me. I have a wooden box of all of his letters. When I open it, I still get the scent of fish.

 

[Kitty_Sheridan]

Pretty apt, I'm trying to sort out a post drop for about 200 guys who are recreating the BEF's withdrawl from dunkirk in 2010.

The boys will be marching about 70miles in full kit, many of them retracing their grandfathers and Great-grandfathers footsteps!

I'm going to try in the next few months to collect some nice vintage cards etc to send to them.

Lovely thread! Thanks!

 

[Sweet Ara D.]

Hundreds of WWII letters

Currently I am the proud owner of every single letter my great grandfather sent to my great grandmother in WWII. I found them in a drawer once while she was still alive and I asked her about them. And then I asked her if I could have them. She gave them to me freely and I think she was just glad somebody was interested in them. I worked really hard for about a year and was able to open every letter, put them in date order and seal them in an acid free protector. They filled 3-3" binders laying flat!! I put them all in a huge box and gave them to my great grandmother on her 90th birthday. She read through every single letter again. And then other family members read through them. They said there was a side of my grandfather that no one really knew about. And they could just feel the love, and heart ache between the two of them. I love those letters and they will be the first thing I grab if the house ever catches on fire!

I haven't read through all of them yet but it seems like hearing about everyday life is what he enjoyed. Of course he has three children at the time so my grandmother would send him little drawings they did... and then he would send them back so that he didn't lose them. It's really cool to see a drawing my grandmother did at 6 yrs old!!

I guess the one thing that I would say stood out to me was that he had a signature he used everytime "Your only one, Bert" Perhaps come up with a signature that sticks with him and brings familiarity every time he reads it.

 

[Kitty_Sheridan]

Ara D that's so beautiful. You're very lucky to have those.

:eusa_clap

 

[ladybrettashley]

Oh, that's so lovely. Makes me wish (even more) that more folks still wrote letters. That's just a treasure!

 

[Darhling]

My first boyfriend and I wrote lots of loveletters to eachother (I was 17 and he was 21) but he is the only one who has written me loveletters though. It was a long distance relationship and we only saw eachother every other weekend, so it was always so thrilling when the postman came to see if there was a letter for me. I do love getting them.. I would take a loveletter over flowers any day!

 

[Darhling]

.. And also back when casette tapes where still used, mixed tapes were highly popular to convey onces romantic feelings LOL We were way cool before High Fidelity came out!! There was truly a science behind the perfect mixed tape!

 

[Laura Chase]

I've always dreamt of being lovers with a man who suffered from erotographomania, an obsessive desire to write love letters. I can imagine nothing more beautiful than a love letter, a love poem, a love song.

The peculiar magic of the love song, if it has the heart to do it, is that it endures what the object of the song does not. It attaches itself to you, and together you move through time.

[...]

We discussed the power of the love letter and found that it was, not surprisingly, very similar to the love song. Both served as extended meditations on ones beloved. Both served to shorten the distance between the writer and the recipient. Both held within them a permanence and power that the spoken word did not. Both were erotic exercises, in themselves. Both had the potential to reinvent, through words, like Pygmalion with his self-created lover of stone, one's beloved. Alas, the most endearing form of correspondence, the love letter, like the love song has suffered at the hands of the cold speed of technology, at the carelessness and soullessness of our age.

 

[Grant Fan]

Paul my boyfriend is stationed in Japan until 2011 and I write him a letter a week. I write things that happened in during the week, and about things I am thinking. All kinds of stuff really, goes into my letters. We don't get very many phone calls so it's a lot of things I would normally talk to him about, that kind sort of thing. Really our men in the military just love getting mail. And care packages like you can't imagine I actually bake him cookies and send them to him frequently. Also if you bake cupcakes in small jars for preserving vegitables it makes great little cakes to send them and then some of that icing in the grocery store it works wonderfuly and then he shares with his buddies it's great.

 

[Harp]

I've always dreamt... I can imagine nothing more beautiful than a love poem...

Thou wouldst be loved?-then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not!
Being everything what now thou art,
Be nothing what thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love-a simple duty.

Edgar Allan Poe; To F,So

 

[LadyDevereaux]

I love to write letters. Sadly I have no one to write them too. I always had a big guilty pleasure of writing to one of our fine servicemen but i dont know anyone in the service! lol

Thinking back perhaps I should have wrote hubby more then maybe I wouldn't be an ex! lol

 

[Joonie]

I have kept journals for more than half of my life and felt "stunted" when it came to writing love letters to my current husband. Once we were engaged I had a bottle of wine and a tremendous trash can and let go of all of the love letters and memories I had before I met him. As a wedding gift, I began writing him a journal, discussing his, my, and our daily lives and dreams. When I gave him the journal the day before our wedding, he was brought to tears. Now I slip little notes in the lunch I pack him, slip a note into his wallet, or send short and sweet emails. And we still have our rather awkward, innocent, and darling emails from when we met online.

 

[ThesFlishThngs]

My husband and I met through letters. Not romantically at first; he was just one of several penpals I had, all over the world. But he was the one in London, which is where I headed with my one-way, standby ticket, when I left everything behind in search of grand adventure. Though he wasn't 'my type', it turned out I couldn't talk myself out of him.
When my visa expired and I had to leave Britain, he wrote me every few days. Oh, I can still remember the scent of those letters, splashed with his Tabac.
Now and then, over the years, we randomly write something to each other, just to keep the penpal spirit alive.

When my grandfather died, it's my understanding my grandmother made a bonfire and burned so many letters and journals. Though I know they must have been intimate, and it was her right to dispose of them how she wished, I can't help but wish something of their correspondence was left.

 

[Audrey Horne]

Pen-pals

That's a beautiful story ThesFlishThngs. Too bad you don't have any of your grandma's letters.

Not quite related, but I wanted to point everyone to a pen-pal thread in the Observation Bar. It's an old thread but it's been revived a bit and I don't think many people have seen it. Stop by if you're interested in a pen-pal

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=9632&page=15

 

[Berlin]

My man is also in the militairy. He's a green beret. Netherlands most dangerous militairy part. He had been to Iraque once, and twice Afghanistan. And he's still so young, he's 25. And he was 18 when he was in Iraque. He saw horrible things and it sometimes still has it's effect. Especially at night.

I also had difficulties with what to write to him. I was scared cause he was gone for such a long time (4 - 6 months) and sometimes not even hearing from him for weeks if he left the base for patrol. The uncertainty is killing. Never knowing if he's still alive.
In August this year a green beret from the Netherlands got killed in a bullet fight in Afghanistan, it was a very good friend of my man.
Now in January his 5th time Afghanistan is on it's way and I am very scared, and then again, I have difficulties with what to write to him.

But..if it's coming straight from (y)our heart(s) then it will be fine for him.

 

[zombi]

My husband and I met through letters. Not romantically at first; he was just one of several penpals I had, all over the world. But he was the one in London, which is where I headed with my one-way, standby ticket, when I left everything behind in search of grand adventure. Though he wasn't 'my type', it turned out I couldn't talk myself out of him.
When my visa expired and I had to leave Britain, he wrote me every few days. Oh, I can still remember the scent of those letters, splashed with his Tabac.
Now and then, over the years, we randomly write something to each other, just to keep the penpal spirit alive.

that is a really beautiful story.