Have you ever had a pen pal? I did two years ago, during the pandemic. I found an app where the letters take time to deliver according to the distance between the sender and receiver. The concept was quite interesting.
I wrote my first letter and sent it to this random guy, whose profile I liked. It was just a short message asking him if he wanted to talk. And that same day we went back and forth around 2 to 3 times. As I mentioned before, the letters weren't received instantly. For us, it took 2 hours, but we waited and replied as soon as we could.
And then we hit it off, the length of our letters kept increasing, and our conversations got interesting. We didn't talk daily, but in those long letters, we filled so much of ourselves in. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. We talked about our likes and dislikes, favorite movies and series, food, comforted each other, shared stories from our childhood, and so much more.
We never went beyond that even in this digital world; we just knew each other's name and where we lived. If today he passes by me on the street, I wouldn't know. I guess that's the magic of being a pen pal. We can talk to a real person and share everything, but at the same time, they don't exist in our reality.
But our correspondence didn't last long. We started talking when the pandemic was in full effect, and we were not allowed to leave the house. But soon the world resumed, and we both were pulled back into our lives. I don't regret anything about it; those few months were great, and I made a great friend. It's just sad that I won't be able to talk to him again.
We didn't even say goodbye to each other; it was like he vanished into thin air. I was busy and I didn't reply to him for a few weeks, and when I did, he had already stopped using the application. I still wrote to him hoping to hear back, but no luck. He read the letter, but I believe he didn't get a chance to write back and soon forgot all about it.
I didn't, and on many days I open that app and read through all our letters. It takes me hours to go through them all, but I still do, trying to remember those moments when I read his words and wrote mine. It was a beautiful relationship, and I will remember it for the whole of my life. And someday, I wish we can write to each other again.
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