I decided to bring back the corniness of my Pay It Forward-happy-message-money signment this week. Corniness has a nice symmetry, a symmetry that seems to round things off—like a balloon or a sitcom episode, you know, happy circles. Yeah. So, moving on from whatever that was.
Some of the only “real snail mail” I ever get is cards from my parents. (I wrote the junk mail post as well, LOOK AT ALL THESE CONNECTIONS!!!!!) My parents send me a card for every holiday, “greeting card holidays” and otherwise. I usually put the card on the fridge for a while. But, inevitably, it gets thrown away or lost because that is the fate of cards. Cards usually don’t mean as much as letters do. If it is a purchased card, the embedded message is usually pretty cheesy and always seems impersonal in a strange way, as only the impersonal that tries for mass-intimacy can. Unless you are a psychopath, most people also write a handwritten message in the card as well. But these are short and simple compared to letter writing. Stationary just has so much more viable-seeming writing space (carefully designed materiality) and the tradition of letter-writing has more of a “I have things to share with you” feel than card-writing. Card-writing is like “Hey, what’s up, it’s Halloween and I like you.” Or “Thinking of you,” which IS a greeting card category, but also kind of what all cards mean.
Anyway, thinking about this signment, I started to feel guilty about how many cards my parents have sent me over the years without me ever sending one back. I think this is not just about me being an ungrateful kid (I hope) but also due to the fact that the greeting card just isn’t what it used to be. My parents used to always try to get me to send cards, in particular Thank You cards, but “Kids just don’t do that it, It’s not cool” turned into the greeting card being phased out of younger generations as a core social custom. We say thank you in other ways, via other materials. Posting on someone’s wall/timeline on facebook allows you to say “I’m thinking of you” or “Happy Birthday” with much less hassle than a card, with about the same level of impersonality. But because cards aren’t as common anymore, I also feel more excited when I get one. Last semester, a student left a card in my school mailbox thanking me for the class. And even though I know on some level this gesture probably had some ulterior, grade-related motives behind it, I was still so surprised and touched by it. When I get cards now, I’m like “Wow, you actually went to Target and got me a card and wrote a smiley face inside with a pencil and then addressed it and took it to the post office or walked somewhere out of your way to get it to me DANG.”
I know my parents have been stressed out lately, so I got them each “Encouragement” cards that feature dog jokes because we have a family dog that they love. I tried to get a bit more extensive/personal in the notes I wrote inside the card than I typically would. For me, getting personal means getting a little weird and signing all the cards from my cat, and also making fantasy references and fart jokes, sorry. I also decided to send a card to my sister too. She recently moved to a new apartment in a new city, so I thought it would give her a nice, housewarming, cozy feeling. Her card is a “Happy Birthday” card for a one year old, complete with a punch out, Hello Kitty crown and a warning that the crown “should only be put together by parents.” I find sending her this hilarious and she will find it funny too, don’t ask for an explanation. Here are my cards:
