Letters

August 5, 2011

It’s 10p.m. and I can’t sleep. I’m afraid to turn the lights out for fear for having a bad dream. Early this afternoon, someone in the house watched a horror film on TV while I was working on my computer and I could well hear the sound of those distant, creepy voices.

 I am now watching Bride Wars and the movie got to that part where one bride sends wedding invitations through e-vites.

And it got me thinking: what happened to the good old-fashioned handwritten letters?

When I was little, letters were a regular sight. My aunt worked abroad—email was a concept equal to outer space then, and so was text messaging—writing a letter was the only way to communicate. Unless you want to include the “voice tapes.” Her family would tell stories and record it on a tape then send it to her by mail. Going local, think of the person working in some big city (Metro Manila maybe) communicating to the family back in the provinces.

Look, I’m not saying that provinces are laid back. The point is, letters are entwined with our lives. Or at least they used to be. Now, we have text messaging and emails. We get a reply in a few minutes—if not seconds. My teacher mused once that overseas letters take weeks to get delivered.

When I visited the post office recently, I asked the mailman if there were still personal letters being sorted and mailed. He told me personal letters were rare, and that most items there were applications to a university, job-related letters, basically the “corporate letters.”

Well, time indeed makes changes. Now that I think of it, I’ve written lots of things except a letter. I’ve done essays, poems and stories. And business letters for field work, but never an actual personal letter.

***

The movie is done and I watch another. One trailer is about the movie Letters to God. It is about a boy battling cancer and a mailman who picks his letters from the mailbox. I haven’t seen the movie. I seriously feel cheesy in attempting to write a letter to God—don’t get me wrong, I say my prayers—I never actually wrote Him.

Since I’m a writer, might as well try, right?

Dear God,

I’ve been surfing the net earlier this evening and I Googled “memory.” Lots of stuff came out, and I chanced upon two conflicting opinions on a website. Having a sharp memory is both a blessing and a curse. It can be a blessing because you don’t easily forget. Students with sharp memories are good with memorization. And it is a curse because you don’t forget. Like that scene I saw on TV this afternoon.

I know You gave me that gift as a blessing; and I have benefited from it all my life. But right now, I'm too spooked to get to bed.

I’m writing this letter with one request: Help me forget what I saw this afternoon and help me have a peaceful sleep.

Yeah, I know. Even when I wrote that I felt a little stupid. I’m not a three-year-old to crawl under my blanket for fear of bad dreams.

But hey, a letter is a letter. If you write your best friend and tell her something, I’m prepared to bet you’d say it point blank. You’d never feel—even for a single sec—that you’re a complete dope.

The only difference is: I can’t mail this one. And the one I happen to write to has an address that’s a little…out of the mailman’s route. I’m sure the receiver of this letter has read its contents even before I finished typing anyway.

Honestly, that’s the best I could come up with right now. It’s not much. Probably not the best letter.

What would be in the best letter? If I write another letter to God, what should be in it, for the letter to be considered the best?

Wait. I write a letter to communicate.

If the letter were to my friend living one cab away, I’d write it plain and simple. I’d tell her about my day, the mind-boggling exam that gave me a nosebleed—nay—brain damage. I’d tell her my brain was completely shut down when I was done and that I am looking forward to an eight-hour sleep tonight.

That would make the best letter. But since God knows everything about me, what would be my best letter to Him?

Bingo.

The best letter is my life.