Droplets from the Inkwell

Blog Prompt: Letter from the future

From "Blogging Circle of Friends " :

Pretend a time machine sends you a letter from your future self—ten or twenty or thirty years from now. What will that letter say? Write it.

I had a few different ideas when I read this prompt. I considered doing some sort of science fiction theme similar to “The Terminator,” where my future self was warning me of some coming event that I absolutely must prevent. However, I decided to go more an advice/stay-the-course missive instead.

Dear Jarred,

I know you must be surprised to be receiving this email from me. Knowing how you are – how I was back then – I suspect that you are quite skeptical that this letter is actually from me. So to clear up the confusion, I would like to simply point out that I still remember when you and Zech started playing chess via snail mail when he lost access to the Internet. Instead of using one of the two common standards for annotating chess games, Zech came up with his own system, which the two of you used to send moves back and forth.

Do you believe it’s me now? Or do I need to get even more personal and start giving details of a certain rendezvous between you and David at his office in Canandaigua back in 2010? Okay, now I’m sure that I have your attention.

Greetings from the year 2042! I am you at the grand age of 68. We’ve had a good life, and I wanted to encourage you and give you something to look forward to. If memory serves, you’ve been facing a lot of doubts and frustrations in recent months at the point when you should receive this email, so I want to give you a bit of hope.

First of all, rest assured that we eventually publish a book. Five in fact. We go through many rejections and re-edits, and the book you currently call “A Change of Mind” particularly has a rocky path ahead. But in the end, we push through it and it sells well enough that we are encouraged to go on and write a couple fantasy novels, our autobiography, and even a book on being a devotee to Freyja. We never become rich, but the extra money and Sean’s job enables us to meet our dream of working only part time and spending the rest of our time devoted to writing and other projects.

I mentioned Sean, so I suppose I should share that bit of news as well. Our persistence in refusing to put up with users, cocky guys, and other people who don’t value us pays off. Eventually, we meet a wonderful guy a few years younger than us named Sean. He’s a professional. I won’t go into the details of how we meet. I will note that we weren’t particularly interested in Sean when we first met him, but his persistence and irresistible charm eventually wins us over, and we end up moving in together in our forties and marrying a couple years later. Sean is our biggest encouragement when it comes to our writing career and a wonderful lover. [Explicit details of Sean’s sexual prowess and our responses to them have been redacted for the purposes of sharing on this blog.]

There’s so much more I could talk about. We end up touching so many lives and building a great family of friends and like-minded people. When we finally reach the age of 68, we feel like we have everything and we look forward to enjoying our twilight years surrounded by the people we love and cherish and who do the same for us. And yes, Sean is still here. And yes, he still loves doing that thing that makes us moan uncontrollably on a regular basis.

Take heart, younger me. Keep doing what you’re doing and hold true to our highest ideals. In the end, it really does give us everything you are currently still hoping for. Don’t let the frustration stop you and rob us of those rewards.

Regards,
Jarred.

JarredH

Give me pen and paper and I shall create entire worlds and fill them with adventures.