The Letter (Revised Final)

“You got a letter.” Dave droned as he sauntered through the archway between the kitchen and the living room, tossing a beat up envelope onto my lap. "For Jessie’s eyes only!" was written on the front in large crooked print. The stamp looked new.

“Who’s it from?” I asked turning it over in my hands looking for some clue. 

“How should I know?” Dave snapped.

“Sorry. I was just asking. Take a Midol.” I tore open a corner of the envelope flap and slid my pinkie nail across the top to open it up. I got a paper cut, but was too curious to bother with it right then. 

I withdrew a poorly folded sheet of yellow paper, the cheap awful kind we used to get given in school, the kind that tore if you tried to erase anything... and we always did.
It read: We are writing letters to our future selves in class today. Hi! Whats up? Congrats on being 25! I have so many questions. What are we? Are we a balerina, or an archeologist like Lara Croft? Did we finally save enough for that trampoline? Are we married to Jeremy Sumpter? If not, that’s okay. I understand. Do we ever get a puppy? Whats his name? How tall are you? Mrs. Kirkman just said she wants me to write something meaningful, so, are you happy?

I thought to myself, “No, I’m not.”
Just then Dave came up behind me on the couch and looked over my shoulder. “Good God! who wrote that?”

“I did,” I replied without thought.

“Why?”

“It was a school assignment when I was nine.”

“Were you retarded as a nine year old, because that hand writing is awful.”

As he left the room, chortling about his own joke, I grabbed my pen from atop the Washington Post daily crossword and drafted a response to my younger self on the back of the letter. Never Grow Up. Then I scratched that out and wrote instead, It’s never too late. Find the courage to start over. Then, I rose from the couch went into our bedroom and started to pack.