I'm inconsolable about the threat to the USPS. Since my mom was diagnosed with ALS two years ago, I started writing a letter to her every day. It's become one of my greatest joys and most centering things in my life.

She used to write back. Then when she couldn't do that, she would tell me her response. Then when that, she would text or email a response. That's getting to be too hard now. So she nods at me on facetime and smizes.

I can't visit her b/c of Covid. But the letters have gotten me through. The letters has also given me tangential hobbies -- like collecting cards and stationery and further motivated my joy of fountain pens & ink.

In the letters sometimes I write about what's going on, challenges at the firm, funny things, sad things, introspective things. It's a totally different relationship than I have with her in person. More real. Letters are good for that.

I love the ritual of writing a letter putting her name and address on the envelope and with a stamp, I can drop it in a blue box and somehow through the magic of complicated sorting systems it gets to my mom, across the country, a 12 hour door-to-door trip when I make it.

When I go home, I always see the basket of all the different letters I've sent to her, and there are always a few by her bed and some by the recliner. and it makes me so happy I discovered this method of communicating with her. I don't want anybody to take the USPS away from me.