June 3, 2009
Jon Boulier – Flash 5 Dear Former, Future Self Dear former, future self, Remember that time in the steel mill?  I know you do.  Dad had you up on the winch, sitting on a plank of wood held by two chains.  He lifted you up high into the air.  And you were scared but figured it was okay, with Dad at the controls and all.  He didn’t have you up that high, did he?  You were only up to his shoulders but it felt like if you slipped, you’d never hit the ground.  Dad had the controls in his hand and he let you down when you really got nervous, but you did what you were moved to do.  Wasn’t it nice to have someone else do the lifting? Or how about that time when you broke down in your first car„ and called Dad on the telephone for help?  He told you it was fine.  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said.  And he was there, in less than fifteen minutes, with a tool box and a grin, and all you had to do was hug him and say thank you. You know, I think there’s going to be one day, when your wife turns to you in the middle of a dark movie theater, with your daughter between you both, sleeping.  She’ll look at us and say, “I love you,” and it will be so obnoxious to say, “I know,” but it will be the only thing we can say out loud that actually means more to us than saying we love her back.  And she’ll get it, and she’ll put her hand out to touch our face, and we’ll remember all the drinking and the cigarettes. And we’ll think of all the long-gone nights where we don’t even know what happened, though it was surely painful, and surely embarrasing, and we’re surely glad to have forgotten it, and she won’t scold us for saying something so stupid or selfish.  She’ll know. One day you’re going to look back at this letter, and you’re going to think, “what a wasted time of my life.”  And you’ll be right, I’m sure.  We should have been out in the rain getting ourselves dripping wet beneath stony skies.  We should have run through black streets with bright red spray-paint and left dribbling hearts on everything.   That girl on the subway, the one with the green Navy jacket, and the long black hair, and the blue jeans?  We should have kissed that stranger.  But it won’t all be a waste.  Will it?  It will all lead to love, right?  To knowing we didn’t make any of the real mistakes?  To a time when waiting to do the things we’re unsure of, ended up working out in the long run?  I hope so. Anyway, I dreamt of you the other night.  You were at your computer, drinking can after can of beer and writing out a letter to yourself.  I cringed every time you took a break to go outside onto the fire escape and smoke.  You did that over and over until you finished - I thought you didn’t smoke.  But you looked so happy to have done something, even though you looked like you were dying while doing it.  It hurt to see you like that.  Is that too much? Take care of yourself, J

Jon Boulier – Flash 5

Dear Former, Future Self

Dear former, future self,

Remember that time in the steel mill?  I know you do.  Dad had you up on the winch, sitting on a plank of wood held by two chains.  He lifted you up high into the air.  And you were scared but figured it was okay, with Dad at the controls and all.  He didn’t have you up that high, did he?  You were only up to his shoulders but it felt like if you slipped, you’d never hit the ground.  Dad had the controls in his hand and he let you down when you really got nervous, but you did what you were moved to do.  Wasn’t it nice to have someone else do the lifting?

Or how about that time when you broke down in your first car„ and called Dad on the telephone for help?  He told you it was fine.  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said.  And he was there, in less than fifteen minutes, with a tool box and a grin, and all you had to do was hug him and say thank you.

You know, I think there’s going to be one day, when your wife turns to you in the middle of a dark movie theater, with your daughter between you both, sleeping.  She’ll look at us and say, “I love you,” and it will be so obnoxious to say, “I know,” but it will be the only thing we can say out loud that actually means more to us than saying we love her back.  And she’ll get it, and she’ll put her hand out to touch our face, and we’ll remember all the drinking and the cigarettes. And we’ll think of all the long-gone nights where we don’t even know what happened, though it was surely painful, and surely embarrasing, and we’re surely glad to have forgotten it, and she won’t scold us for saying something so stupid or selfish.  She’ll know.

One day you’re going to look back at this letter, and you’re going to think, “what a wasted time of my life.”  And you’ll be right, I’m sure.  We should have been out in the rain getting ourselves dripping wet beneath stony skies.  We should have run through black streets with bright red spray-paint and left dribbling hearts on everything.   That girl on the subway, the one with the green Navy jacket, and the long black hair, and the blue jeans?  We should have kissed that stranger.  But it won’t all be a waste.  Will it?  It will all lead to love, right?  To knowing we didn’t make any of the real mistakes?  To a time when waiting to do the things we’re unsure of, ended up working out in the long run?  I hope so.

Anyway, I dreamt of you the other night.  You were at your computer, drinking can after can of beer and writing out a letter to yourself.  I cringed every time you took a break to go outside onto the fire escape and smoke.  You did that over and over until you finished - I thought you didn’t smoke.  But you looked so happy to have done something, even though you looked like you were dying while doing it.  It hurt to see you like that.  Is that too much?

Take care of yourself,

J

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