I was reading something on line the other day by a mum who was at a very low point.  I am guessing she must have had very young kids...no school involved.  She sounded as though she had lost herself.  She spoke of having little to look forward to apart from checking if the mail had been delivered and seeing if she had contact with the outside world.  Not sure if she was married or not.  She also seemed to know how ridiculous this sounded - she said herself that the majority of envelopes just contained bills....

Unless I have something fab coming through the Post I am not obsessive about checking the mailbox at all.  Our mail can be delivered anywhere from 12pm - 7.30pm.    But I remember as an au-pair in Germany being mad about checking the mail box to see if there was anything for me. However i should state that I had a long distance boyfriend at the time who was away at University in Oxford and he wrote me almost daily and I lived for his next installment of student life.  We were never as good in real life as we were through our letters!!

I still love getting handwritten mail.  I have a friend in TN and she too likes to get something other than a bill so we send each other wee cards here and there.  Another friend in UK writes very rarely but when she does, she composes mini novels and I look forward to sitting down and reading them.  It is so rare to receive the written word like that it almost feels quite Victorian.

Having said that I am an e-mail addict.  It's the reason I don't allow myself to get a Blackberry.  My American friends are impressed with my texting as it is not so popular out here but I know compared to UK texting I am very very slow....But my e-mail - I am like a 12 year old girl checking it all the time.  I can live without the Amazon offers and the Asda Mothers Day reminders (I haven't set foot in an Asda for almost 3 years and have no idea when Mothers Day is in UK)..but from real people I love getting their e-mails.  Some I reply to instantly in the hope that they're on line...others are more of a homework assignment to respond to.  Some I read and they fill me with dread as I know there will be a mail to forward to 66 friends in 2.3 minutes or something.  But it is a crazyily good invention.

But when you don't hear from someone you want to...and you click away feeling very needy.  That sucks big time.  There's only so many times a day you can check your wireless Internet connection surely.  I bet this is the modern day equivalent of picking up the phone receiver to check there was still a dial tone.  And just like back then...you can't will someone to write just like you could never get the phone to ring.....no matter how long you looked at the bloody thing.