Dear Old Man ...

Where did I get the idea?  I have no idea.  Maybe it's an idea that occurs naturally to a lot of teenagers with an introspective bent.

Anyway, I was 17 years old.  And one day, I sat down and wrote a letter to myself.  To myself as a "middle-aged" 30-year-old man.  A letter not to be read until I reached that age.

As I recall, it was a reasonably long letter, but not book-length!  Maybe several handwritten pages, pages in which I poured out my heart.  I sealed it in an envelope, with something original written on the envelope -- something like "Do Not Open Until 30 Years Old."  I tossed it into the bottom drawer of my dresser, a drawer crammed with the paper effluvia of my life -- including, memorably, a little notebook from second grade filled with weekly spelling tests.

And that was the last I ever saw of my letter.  Years later, after my family had moved to a different house, while I was still in college and long before I turned thirty, I checked to see if the envelope was still waiting for me.  It was gone.  Everything else that I remembered having packed into that drawer was still there, but not my letter.

What happened to it?  I'll never know.  Maybe the same Kindly Elves who often erase adult memories of childhood embarrassments and humiliations also act on occasion to remove hard copy documentations of such silliness?

I can't remember one single thing that I said about my life, my hopes, my dreams.  Nothing.  All I remember was the preamble.  At the beginning of the letter, I more or less congratulated myself for having lived to the ripe old age of thirty.  I told my future self that I reckoned he probably was well settled into whatever career he ended up pursuing, and that I supposed he must be accustomed to showing up for work on a daily basis.  

This person I was addressing was of such an Old Age, and existed so far in the Future, that it was difficult to believe I would ever be he.

In my preamble, I added that, as I wrote my letter at 17, I dreaded ever finding myself at the age of thirty.  Nor was I all that eager for regular work hours and daily routines.

I needn't have worried.  When I actually became thirty -- yes, it happened despite my fervent wishes -- I was taking the LSAT and applying to law schools.  After considerable delay, I was somewhat belatedly preparing to enter a profession.  And by the time I reached that goal, I had found that going to work daily was -- for the most part -- a pleasure.  And the long hours I worked were nothing I begrudged.

Many 17-year-olds -- at least those who end up entering major professions -- are already licking their chops as they contemplate their future professional status.  I was not one of them.  And looking back, and comparing myself with those who were already so single-minded at 17, I have absolutely no regrets.

But I do regret the loss of my letter.  I'd give a lot to read it now.