Love letters

It started as something innocent, but it progressed over time. Always beautiful and sweet, though.

It became part of my daily routine – every morning I’d check my mailbox, and there it would be: a love letter. The person who sent them remained nameless and seemed to deliver the letters themselves. The envelopes were blank. No stamp. No information about the sender.

The first letter arrived one morning in early spring. It has been a year now, and so far there hasn’t been a day when I haven’t received one.

It gives me a reason to get up in the morning. It’s something to look forward to. There are even days when I go to bed early just to read my new letter.

I have never responded, and I’ve never caught the person delivering them. I have begun to suspect the mailman, but that seems far-fetched. He has worked in the neighborhood for almost ten years now. Surely, the letters would have started sooner if he had anything to do with them.

It hasn’t been for lack of trying, though, but I’ve begun to enjoy the mystery – the unknowing.

The first letter was short, words careful and hesitant. Some parts looked darker and smudged, as if the person had changed their mind and gone over the words several times before deciding.

From just one letter I could tell the person was shy and uncertain. They seemed to search for perfection but settled for imperfection and honesty.

It had made me smile, but that was that—or so I thought. The next day, a new letter arrived.

From the very first word, I could tell the person was more confident than in the last letter. The writing looked clean, gentle, and more deliberate, as if every stroke had been added with care.

By the tenth letter, I began to realize that this person hadn’t started sending me these letters on a whim. It was a secret admirer – one who wasn’t going anywhere.

After a hundred letters, they had become more comfortable, braver, and bolder. I could tell from the words, and from the way they were written. The words almost seemed to dance and play across the paper, flowing smoothly.

The letters never scared me or unsettled me. They were genuine and sweet, never crossing that boundary. They wrote only of what anyone could easily find out about me — nothing more.

I didn’t tell my family or my friends.

It became our little secret.

It never occurred to me to send a reply. I didn’t know who this person was, so it would be an impossible task. So, I started to piece the puzzle together, trying to find out who it was. I woke up early to spy out the window, but the only person who put letters into my mailbox was the mailman. That’s when I started to suspect him, but it wasn’t long before I moved on to other suspects.

Maybe the person didn’t deliver the letters themselves? Maybe they had an agreement with whoever was delivering the mail? Or did the mailman even know about the letters he delivered? How would that work, exactly? There was no information on the paper.

I started to go insane.

I waited for the mailman and kept questioning him — he might know something about the sender. “Ma’am, please.”

Ma’am? I wasn’t that old.

“How do you even know it’s for me?” I needed to know and kept questioning him, but he only brushed me off.

“Here!” he said, handing me the next letter, then turned and walked back to his bicycle.

Not a single glance my way.

I felt lost in my search for the truth, but then I started to appreciate the letters. They made me smile and laugh, and slowly I developed feelings for a person whose gender I didn’t even know. It was a lovely friendship — maybe it could become more at this point — but I’d never met this person, and it had only become a one-way communication.

After a while my heart started pounding whenever I saw the mailman delivering my letter. A smile spread across my face, and I rushed to the mailbox. But then I feared the worst — what if it one day disappeared? What if they stopped sending me these letters?

Would I be lost without them?

I began writing back, not to send to the person, but for myself. I wrote what these letters meant to me, how they brightened up my day, and how much I looked forward to them. I even I confessed my feelings for the writer. Then I folded the paper, slipped it into an envelope, and hid it in my nightstand. I locked it and made sure it was never seen by anyone.

I can’t stop trying to picture the person in my mind. Were they a man or a woman? Were they tall, short, thin, muscular, or curvy? Were they fair or darker?

This person even started bringing me flowers, chocolate, and sometimes jewelry. I’m now wearing a heart shaped necklace, and I haven’t taken it off since the sender gave it to me.

I’ve received more than 300 letters by now, and I’ve completely and utterly fallen for a stranger. In my mind, I call them my sweet devotion.

I still don’t know a single thing about them. All I know is what I’ve been able to read between the lines of their writing. They’ve never given away any information about themselves.

And I don’t know what I would do with myself if they suddenly left me. If the letters stopped coming — would I break apart? Would my heart shatter all the same, as if they were a real person, as if I could touch them, talk to them, know them. Would I survive?

To this day, they haven’t stopped, and I still don’t know who they are. Maybe I never will.