the art of being a pen pal

as long as i can remember i have had a pen pal. my first pen pal was my best friend growing up ashley.
she was my next door neighbor when we were stationed at dyess air force base. but with the military
lifestyle a few years later she moved, then i moved. so the way i would keep up with my friends after
every move was to write them. in the 90's & even early 2000's calling long distance was costly and i didn't have email.

after putting your letter in the mail and anxiously awaiting to hear back from them is one of my favorite
parts of letter writing. the act of just sitting down and writing something instead of texting or facebooking is such a rarity in our day & age.

i came across kaitlins instagram over two years ago and instantly had a girl crush on her. i saw her life
in photos and i thought to myself, "i want to be her friend." not too long after being insta friends we became Facebook friends. because lets face it, thats what happens. you get to know someone from that form and want to see their life in the next. so one day i messaged her and said "lets be pen pals."
this was the start of a flourishing friendship.
i remember getting to know kaitlin through pen & ink and it almost like we were having a conversation.
it felt like we were sitting on the couch chatting away, i could hear her voice through her letters.
so, this of course made chatting on the phone one night for three hours almost the easiest thing in the world.

i have been able to gain so many friendships through instagram from letter writing.
i wanted to share a few tips on pen palling & encourage each one of you to start writing!

1. buy cute stationary. i know this sounds silly but if you buy some stationary that you love, you will 
use it.

2. ask at least three girls to write.  i know this sounds like a lot of people, but this will make you be more intentional about writing. plus, more mail the better!

3. don't be afraid to ask questions. i found that during my pen pal relationship with kaitlin we didn't ask the typical questions. at first we did ask "whats your favorite color.. etc" but then we asked the harder questions "how is your heart?" "how is your relationship with your family." etc

4. dont. stop. writing. i know life gets busy and i have been bad at loosing touch with my pen pals, but be intentional. keep those friendships going!


we all hope that you reach out to find your very own pen pal. it could be either someone you admire on IG or a long distant friend.

We have had an overwhelming response to this post! we adore each and everyone of you that have reached out to want to be our pen pal. as much as kaitlin & i would love to be able to get to know our readers through pen & paper, we are unable to do so. if we did, our hand would fall off from all of the writing! i do hope that you find someone to write to & have the friendship that kaitlin & i have because of our beginning. thank you again for your response and your love for our blog!

x's + o's,
chelsea diane