A letter to you

Jules Gellar sat down on her bed, with her back against her headboard surrounded by a ton of pillows adorned in burgundies, grays, blues and some pinks. She reached down to her feet, and yanked off her white socks and threw them on the floor beside the bed.

She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, and grabbed the notebook on her nightstand.

As long as 47 year old Jules could remember, writing has been a big part of her identity – the one thing in her life that has remained constant even when others things seem chaotic.

Her writing career had spanned more than 20 years thus far as a newspaper reporter. She had been published in more than five print publications and 12 online publications.

A few years back, Jules decided to jump ‘ship’ and cross over into the publishing world. Jules started writing short stories. She had published two successful collections of short stories.

With the novellas or anthologies, Jules had found, as she told her dad one day, “my breath.”

Jules slid her legs flat in front of her, and sat poised ready to write. She wasn’t sure how to explain it, but her dad knew.

Charlie Gellar always knew everything about his youngest daughter … sometimes even before she did. Though they had the typical daddy-daughter ‘butting heads’ moments, Jules’ grandmother called them ‘two peas in a pod.’

With her mom, Jules shared a love of music, but with her dad, it was different – they both were writers full of expression. She clicked her pen.

Her dad was part of the reason she was sitting on her bed now with a book and pen in hand. Jules had stopped writing for the newspaper when her book sales started increasing and her publisher wanted her to do more. Her editors at the paper begged her not to go, and gave her a syndicated column. She had written a column, a feature-y type one every Tuesday – and it was pretty popular.

So, two days ago, they made her an offer. She talked to her dad about it, and he suggested writing some essays about just every day life stuff, but in letter format.

“To who, Dad?” Jules had asked.

Charlie had said, “Your readers. Your friends. Your coworkers. Your younger self.”

That last suggestion had grasped on to her creative brain. In all the years of school and a ton of creative writing classes, Jules had never been given the assignment of writing a letter to her younger self.

So, that’s what she was doing for her first column. Jules was going to use it as an introduction.

Jules stretched out and looked at the blank piece of paper in front of her. She could have been doing this on her lap top, but Jules still liked to do some stuff the old fashioned way. The smell of ink hitting paper was almost orgasmic.

“Alexa, play Jon Batista.” Jules said out loud to her Echo device on her dresser. Though she wasn’t a big fan of the Stephen Cobert late night talk show, she was a big fan of his band leader, Jon and his music. He had just won five Grammy music awards.

Whenever she played him or Mandisa or Casting Crowns or old songs from Elvis Presley, Jules could get into a writing groove pretty quickly.

“Dear You … It is me, well, it is you at age 47, and as Jon Batista’s latest hit, ‘Freedom,’ blasts out from the music streaming device, I think of 1,000 things I want to tell you.

Mom and Dad are fine. In fact, we share a house together – they are one side, and I am on the other. It is Papa’s and Grandma’s house. Dad remodeled it, and they have an apartment on one side and I have a ‘suite’ on the other.

We figured it was the easiest thing to do – since I am the youngest, since the only thing I ever married was my career and since I have no extra responsibilities, like kids. The others are so busy with their own lives and live states away.

You are older now, and thanks to some health issues, and some bad eating habits, you are overweight – but your doc says you are a healthy overweight. It is what it is. I have come to accept it, and don’t let it be my central focus anymore. I just choose differently.

Life is about choices right? God gives us choices – follow Him or not. I am glad that you decided to follow Him at age seven. Though life has been easy peasy and there has been some chaos here and there, because of that early decision you made, and the striving you did and I do, to know God better, well, it has been refreshing.

See, that one decision you made gives me hope, allows me God’s grace and undconditional love.

But I don’t take that for granted. I do mess up, and that is the one that has not changed … I still, you still … take things way to dramatically and seriously.

We are making it though. And you know what, this song has me taking a whole different turn with this letter. This was supposed to my first entry for my first syndicated column with the newspaper … but I don’t think that’s where this is headed.”

Jules cocked her head, and glanced toward the ceiling. “God, I don’t know where you are taking me with this letter, but I am willing to let it flow.” She whispered.

“That happens when you write sometimes … you plan and you plan, and everything can start out smoothly, and then BAM, you are headed down another road. So many writers would stop or would have stopped way before now, and crumpled up the paper or hit the delete button, but this time, I think I am going to keep going. It is not for publication.”

“Olivia died last year. Yeah, I know, hurts your heart right? You know we all grieved her when she ran out on everyone and chose to live as wildly as she did … the prodigal son in Luke in the Bible had nothing on Liv, right?”

“Sex, drugs, more sex, alcohol, more alcohol, jail time, fights and let’s not forget, the baby she had when she was in the drug treatment center. She made her proverbial bed, and Mom and Dad did give her a choice … get dry, get straight, get a job, and be consistent for a year, and you can come home. But we know how that went … and Mom and Dad still did little things for her. Dad said we wrote her off, but you know them … best thing about having Christian parents.”

“Here’s where my writing will probably flatten out. Right after Liv died, a lady contacted me via social media. Screenplays and Lifetime movies have been written about stuff like I am about to tell you … the adopted mom of Liv’s baby reached out. I nearly passed out. I mean, we knew she had a baby … she told us that … but she was so plastered half the time … you never knew what to believe … Mom did find out there was a baby but we weren’t given details … well, I got the details.”

“She had a little boy … and he is in his early 20s. The dad was some guy she met at the clinic – a black guy. I have not meet our nephew yet – only through social media. His name is James- Jamie for short. Polite … well-mannered and respectful … wish the other nephews and nieces had his manners … I finally was able to tell Dad about it … Mom is having senior moments … and Dad wants to meet Jamie. So, we will see what happens. I was sad for so long about Liv, and felt guilty for so long about not being there for her more. But in meeting Jamie and hearing the story from the adopted mom, I realized something … there was nothing any of us could have done for Liv. She had made her choices.”

“Well, I hear Dad hollering my name, so I better go see what he wants. One piece of advice, don’t freak out so much about things you encounter in life and about the people who come and go … in the grand scheme of things, life is not worth freaking out about … just keep moving. All My Best, J.”

Jules shut her notebook, and figured she would try something different for the column later.

“Jules, we’re going to Whataburger, want to come?” Charlie walked to his daughter’s daughter.

Her eyes widened, and she said, “For sure … that is one thing that will never change.” Jules got up, and reached for her tennis shoes near the bed, slipping them on without socks.

Charlie said, “What? Your love for Whataburger … come on …” He walked away from the door.

Jules put her notebook away, and said to herself, “Well, it is not what I expected to do, but who knows what will become of that letter.”

“JULES!” Charlie bellowed.

She shut her nightstand drawer, and grabbed her purse hanging on the back of the door, “I am coming.”