For the love of letters

The joy of slow communication and connection

Jul 04, 2025

Dear neurokin,

Have you ever been stuck in a weird grief time tunnel? For me, last week feels like 3 years ago. I seem to be moving in slow motion but my clock is on fast forward.

That’s not what brings me here today. Grief is what has kept me away. What brings me here is to share one of my joy’s with you, my love of letters.

Letter writing, Pen Pals or writing an email to a friend, its the slow back and forth of exchanges between two people about life. Seemingly meaningless thoughts, which actually reveal a great deal about you or your ‘pen pal’.

One of the things I love most about the exchange of long form written words is getting to know someone, to connect with them more slowly.

Realising that the written word is your favourite way to communicate

I love warm exchanges I get in casually chatting with people. I’m a friendly human. So it came as a bit of a shock to me to realise I find a lot of talking a bit exhausting!

In and amongst all that unravelling that happens when you explore your neurodivergence, it brought me both comfort and disappointment to realise that one of the reasons I struggled, was frequently overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted and burned out from working in high energy businesses was, in part, due to the amount of talking I had to do each and every day.

Back to back meetings, constantly answering questions, providing information, facilitating learning events and worst of all, the dreaded ‘presentations’. All of this involved huge amounts of verbal communication, with little or no time to process the avalanche of thoughts and feelings churning in the background.

I guess I’d always prided myself in being that chatty and gregarious person, the one I had worked so hard to create, in order to fit in.

Accepting myself as autistic has brought me joy in realising and embracing my love of the written word and finding new ways to develop relationships with this as the main form of communication.

**Me & my Granny circa 1984** (why was there so much brown and beige in the 80’s?!)

My Granny was a brilliant letter writer. When our family moved from Scotland to England in 1982 she wrote to my Mum weekly. Then, when I was a teenager, she started writing to me too.

I treasured her letters, I have kept them all and find it deeply comforting to see her handwriting on the envelopes and letters. There is something so wonderful about a physical memory that it creates and allows you to revisit.

A letter from 1996, when aged 20, I apparently fell asleep on the train home regularly (quite possibly after too many drinks and no doubt exhausted from London life!)

For the record

Of course she used the telephone to speak to us too! Your memory can alter the actual verbal conversations you have, but a letter never alters what was said or felt from writer and the recipient.

For a short while I had a pen pal in a girl I’d met on holiday in Portugal, probably around the age of 10 or 11.

Whilst on holiday, we created what we thought was a secret language; drawing an eye for the word I! Yes, I know, not very sophisticated.

Eventually these letters petered out, probably on the dawn of teenage years when I was far too busy with angst about all the complexities of understanding and being liked by other teenage humans.

Before mobile phones or ‘smart’ phones took over our life, whittling down our interactions to simple emoji’s (kind of like the secret language I developed with my holiday pen pal!) I was a frequent emailer to friends who had moved from London to New York or other such glamorous places!

I loved receiving news of their life from afar and writing back with tales of the latest ‘car crash’ messes in my life (I had a period in my twenties where I was very dark in my humour about what I now see as being my neurodivergent difficulties, in pretty much all relationships with friends or lovers)

Last year, I had the pleasure of speaking to a wonderful neurodivergent human who I’d struck up an interaction with in a quiet corner of instagram. We continued to send messages to each other from then on.

Earlier this year they made the very admirable decision to come off social media altogether, after noticing that the reporting of life had taken over from the actual enjoyment of it.

“I’m not present in my own life”

Will you be my Pen Pal?

“I’ll miss our interactions” I said.

Then a thought came to me. I wonder if we could be pen pals?

I sent them a message, just before they deleted their account. I explained that I used to be a pen pal with my Granny and very briefly with an Irish girl I’d once met on holiday and I was wondering “will you be my pen pal?” Not with actual pen and paper but with an email exchanging news of our lives….

It felt like a brave thing to do, a bit like when you pluck up the courage to ask someone “will you be my friend?” not that anyone ever says that, its always way more coded and complicated than that! (one of my all time favourite humans, Caroline, did actually say that to me “will you be my friend?” and I loved her all the more for the straightforwardness in making it known that she liked me and wanted to become friends)

Later on that night I went a bit cold and my head felt all prickly, I froze and thought oh my god, what the fuck were you thinking?! She probably thinks you’re batshit crazy for asking, in 2025, “will you be my pen pal!”

Yes, the good old judgey saboteur voice, with blindside level of criticism, had reared her “you’re so embarrassing” head or voice.

One of the things that I’ve had to really work on, to fully live my neurodivergent life, is to change my internal dialogue to one that’s more compassionate. So I had a little internal chat with myself it’s ok, you were brave to ask her to keep on developing a friendship.

The next day I was so happy to receive a message that said “that is such a lovely idea, I’d love to be your pen pal”

Over these last few months we’ve been sending monthly ‘letters’ sharing the things we’re curious about, our deep wonderings and slowly sharing more intimate details of our lives.

I’m so glad I had the courage to follow my instincts, to ask the question “will you be my pen pal?” and to develop my love of communicating in the written word.

An On Screen Love of Letters

Further cementing my love of letters was this film 84 Charing Cross Road , which I stumbled across on Netflix in May.

Based on a true story of transatlantic correspondence between a sassy New York script writer, Helene Hanff and Frank Doel a bookshop manager at 84 Charing Cross Road, London. Their letters span from 1949 to 1968. This film beautifully captures the two cities, lives and friendships that blossomed from those letters.

Featuring a very young Judy Dench and capturing the spirit of the 1950’s - late 1960’s through a lens from the 1980’s. I LOVED it!

Time moves slowly

In closing this newsletter to you, dear reader, I’m noticing that this period of grief is making me contemplative about human connection, past and present.

I didn’t expect my letter about letters to have taken me to reading letters from my Granny from 1996 - 1998!

If you’ve been a Belong…we are neurokin subscriber and reader for a while (thank you) you’ll know I love to ask you questions.

What’s your favourite form of communication?
Has that altered since discovering you’re neurodivergent or changed over time?
If you love the written word, who would you most like to be a Pen Pal with?