In case you've noticed by brief absence this last week, I've been offline more than usual since my boyfriend H came to visit me in Michigan from where we both live in North Carolina. As a little bit of background, H and I started dating in high school (our sophomore year) after he spent months annoying me in French class. But after high school, he stayed to go to school in NC while I moved to Florida, spending my summers traveling or in Michigan.
So obviously, we don't see each other too often. A few times during the school year. Christmas. The month of May. That's pretty much it.
Sometimes it's hard. It's really really hard. I'm a naturally terrible communicator and that doesn't make LDRs easy. But over the years, we've found ways of making it work. One of which is letter-writing. We both love getting special little token gifts, and letters fill that for us. It's old-fashioned and sort of silly, but it's so exciting to open the mailbox and get something from hundreds of miles away.
But sometimes, it's hard to know what to write about. We already text all the time and talk on the phone and FaceTime, so it's not as if we don't know what's going on in each other's lives. Going off that, I've been coming up with a list of prompts to use for writing letters to a long-distance love--or even family or friends if you tweak them a little.
- Recall a fun or happy memory in as much detail as possible. Don't forget that little moments can be some of the best memories.
- Share a dream for the future.
- Tell your SO about something you saw or experienced recently that made you think of them.
- Reminisce on your first date or the first time you met.
- List a few quirks about your SO that you love or funny mannerisms that you miss.
- Plan a date for the next time you're together.
- Write an acrostic poem using their name as the lines.
- Send an old-school selfie. Take a picture of yourself and print it out and mail it!
- If you both speak another language, write a short letter in that language and make them work a little to read about how much you love them.
- Talk about a vacation you would like to take or a destination to visit with them.
- List a few ways your SO makes you proud.
- Tell your SO about where you live if they've never visited.
- Send a list of songs as an old-fashioned mixtape! If you're really ambitious, you could mail a CD or usb drive with songs on it or just a url to a playlist online.
- Draw them a doodle.
- List a few things your SO does for you that you appreciate.
- Recall a childhood memory or story they may not have heard before.
- Describe your SO using only three words and explain why you chose those words.
- Make a list of things you need your SO for (i.e. I need H to help me get things off the top shelf at the grocery store.)
- Write a silly haiku. (Remember--it's three lines with five, seven, and five syllables, respectively.)
- Write as many reasons as you can why you love them.
Have any others to add? Are you a letter-writer?
