The Letter

Simon overheard two women talking while he waited to check out at the grocery store. 

“I’m serious,” said the brunette. “If you write a letter to that address, it will go to your future or past self. I’m telling you, it changed my life!”

“What was the address again?” asked the blonde. 

Simon pulled out his phone and took note of the address and then tucked the phone back in his pocket. As he continued to wait, he mused about what he would write about. The big question was whether he would address the letter to his past or future self. He looked at his groceries. In his cart was the same wonder bread, lunch meat, and cans of soup that he always purchased. When he checked out, he brought these groceries to his gray sedan which he had had for the last ten years. As he took a seat behind the wheel, Simon realized that this was his future self. He had not changed since moving to this suburb. He had developed comfortable habits and he saw little chance of him changing them. The realization depressed him. 

When he got home, Simon put away his groceries, took out a pen and paper, and sat down at the kitchen table. 

‘Dear Simon,’ he wrote and then paused. What was he writing? Reassurance that everything was okay? A warning? Yes, he did live a comfortable, beige sort of life where he took no risks. All his friends had move on, taking on new jobs, families, etc. and he was still here waiting for life to happen. 

Simon scribbled the cliche ‘don’t grow up, it’s a trap’ but he soon scratched it out with a few strokes of his pen. Then, with a more serious tone, he began to write. He remembered his younger, more awkward self in high school and visualized writing to that person. He remembered all the anxiety he had felt as that kid when it came to school, girls…all of these things that no longer mattered now. What really perturbed him now was his lack of taking risks. He never did ask out the prom queen. He never went to the college of his dreams because it was half-way across the country. He never tried a new car brand. He never tried the keto diet. When he thought about it, he never tried anything. 

Simon rubbed his face as he realized his safe life choices got him a comfortable life, but he had never grown and experienced the ups and downs of life that a little risk provided. He had no risk, but he had no reward either, just mediocrity. He imagined how his former self would be ashamed at the mediocrity that his adult self was comfortable with. He felt he had atrophied as a human being. 

After writing his essay to his younger self, Simon put his pen down and took a look over his letter. His comments and words of advice moved him to tears. He could not believe he had all of this emotion packaged up and stuffed inside of him. The brunette’s words ‘it changed my life’ echoed in Simon’s head. He wondered if his letter of warning would be enough for his younger self to make the changes in his past and seize the opportunities he now regretted not taking as an adult. 

Full of excitement at the life changing journey he was about to embark on, Simon leapt out of his seat, pulled out an envelope and the address on his phone. But when he searched for the address, he could not find it. His heart raced. His palms sweat. He recalled putting it in the notes app when he was on line at the grocery store. There was no other place he would have put it. He then thought about how he had shoved his phone in his pocket. He must have deleted the address with his clumsy fingers. 

What was he to do? His past self needed this letter. His current self needed this letter too. He needed a change in his life, just like the brunette had proclaimed while on the line at the grocery store. 

Simon slumped into the chair and put his head in his hands. Now that his eyes had been opened to his dissatisfaction with his life, he could no longer go on like this. The bland ham sandwich and tomato soup were now off-putting. His sparsely furnished home looked more like a rental than the home he had been living in for ten years. What had he done to himself?

After indulging in this moment of feeling sorry for himself, Simon straightened up. What if he performed the changes now that he had hoped that his letter would have inspired his past self to accomplish? He flipped the piece of paper over and wrote, ‘Simon’s Goals for the Year.’ His first step was to move; he did not even like it here. He wasn’t sure where, but he always wanted to live in a big city, even if it were just once. His second step was after he moved, he would ask the prettiest girl he saw out on a date. He could not even remember the last time he spoke to a woman. The idea made him tremble but it also filled him with the excitement of a possible relationship with a real person. With this momentum, Simon kept writing until he jotted down all the fantastic things he had wished he had done with his life up to this moment. All the things that he believed would get him out of his ten-year rut. 

Once Simon finished the second version of his letter, this time to him, his current self, he smiled. He got up for a piece of tape, and posted his plan to his fridge and stared at the list. Without the thoughts of doubt weighing him down, Simon immediately began to look for apartments in the city.