This "Snail Mail Swap" Is Rewriting Adult Friendships

At 42, Lacey Richter's social life almost stalled out. She lives in Austin, TX, where she's raising a teenager and runs a kids retail shop, and lately it seemed her circle was shrinking. "It's really hard to make friends when you're older. You're just working and parenting and you're literally just tired," she tells Popsugar. Of all things, it was a fateful Instagram scroll that cracked her world back open. In January, one of her dopamine-follows, Australian craft evangelist Martina Calvi (@martinamartian), announced the start of a snail mail swap, encouraging her followers to comment on the post in search of new pen pals. It was the second year in a row Calvi had offered something like this, and Richter's first time adding herself to the mix. She commented on the thread — one of nearly 7,000 — identifying herself as a "small business operator/taylor swift super fan/single mom to a teenage girl & handsome cat fella." A few months…