Letter to My Son 2

My son,

You probably felt the tremor in the Force the moment you saw my name pop up again.

Tatty must have another lecture ready and waiting.

It's been a while since I last let you have it.

Maybe a groan escaped before you could clamp it down.

I get it. I’ve ambushed you often enough with roadside mussar that you’re practically conditioned to brace for impact.

And still, here I am.

Pull up a chair, if you’re willing, and let me tell you something I wish I’d grasped when I was exactly your age.

I’m writing about the cost of things.

Not the sticker price on shoes or how much pizza drains your allowance, but the invisible toll every pursuit quietly demands.

You already sense it when you force yourself to do your daily pushups or stare at a blank sheet trying to do your homework.

Maybe you wonder why the words on your phone pour out with ease but freeze the instant a teacher asks for an essay.

Costs show up in effort, in time, and in moments we’d rather scroll.

This is a lesson that kept slipping through my fingers for far too long: the toll collector is patient.

Skip the booth today, and he just adds interest tomorrow, stamping the receipt eventually… with penalties.

I learned this first from the glow of television.

Back when shows arrived in weekly drips, I discovered the intoxicating bliss of binge marathons.

VHS tapes, then DVDs. Blockbuster was my jam.

You probably don't even know what blockbuster was. This was the height of media before streaming.

Whole weekends disappeared inside plot twists.

I told myself it was harmless relaxation, even “cultural literacy.”

Meanwhile my body softened, my mind dulled, and my late-night promises of I’ll catch up on reading tomorrow; and I’ll write that story over winter break, became the running gag of my twenties.

I didnt completely waste my life. There were a lot og good things I worked hard on. And looking back, the only meaningful things I have today were the result of those episodes of complete dedication.

There were and are many areas of my life I refused to pay the cost.

And that failure has taken a toll on you. Maybe pressure I should have fixed myself was added to your plate.

One day I saw the lesson in sharp contrast.

All that would have remained a private tax problem if I hadn’t stepped into a nursing home for my first administrator job.

Nothing clarifies the cost of choices like walking two adjacent hallways every day.

In one room, Mr. Samoda, ninety-three, greets me with a firm handshake and a question about the strings hanging from my belt.

He keeps a small spiral notebook open on his tray, scribbles writing, scratched like art across the page. A stack of four books at his bedside, not his current reading—that's on the tray table. No, those books were the ones he authored himself. The staff loves him. He's a sweetheart and a bit of a flirt with the aides.

Across the corridor sits Mrs. Stilton.

The slightest inconvenience sends her fist slamming on the call bell, and the television in her room never shuts up.

She complains of loneliness, aches, and wrong flavors of Jell-O.

Sometimes the staff suggest she join a group activity; she waves them away as though they’ve offered poison.

I used to think Samoda and Stilton occupied different universes, he the disciplined saint, she the cautionary tale.

Then one afternoon it struck me like cold water.

they’re the same species, built of the same fragile flesh.

What changed the trajectory was not luck, not IQ, not even major trauma.

It was tiny deposits, day after slow day. Samoda kept handing over his ‘pocket change’ ten minutes of study, a stroll before lunch, a letter to his granddaughter, until the small “coins” formed a fortress.

Stilton delayed payment until the bill ballooned beyond her strength to cover. No family visiting, constantly at odds with a revolving door of roommates. Even the department of health came to know she was trouble.

I saw my reflection flicker between their two faces, and it terrified me.

That’s when I began to keep track. It was still a while before I started writing this newsletter; maybe the only reason was enough mounting evidence of the need I had to get my act together drowned me in a tsunami of reasons.

Here’s the other truth I learned the hard way:

The toll is different for everyone.

It's not uniform. It's based on the unique package Hashem made for you.

I felt this really intensely in yeshiva. I had a friend of mine who could chap a sugya as if the words melted straight into his bloodstream.

I needed three readings, a highlighter, and a pot of coffee.

Another friend struggled to form a single paragraph, yet he could sense emotions in the room before anyone else detected a shift in mood.

Fair? Hardly.

But life isn’t a supermarket with uniform barcodes; it’s an auction where each of us arrives holding whatever currency Hashem stuffed into our pockets.

Wishing you’d been dealt someone else’s “coins“ doesn’t raise your bid; it just wastes your time.

I don’t want that for you.

I know the world already tosses enough anxiety your way.

grades, friends, the blistering speed of your feed.

The last thing you need is another adult barking, “Work harder, kid!”

So here’s the gentler truth I keep coming back to for myself, even when it stings.

Change can start tonight, and it can start ridiculously small.

You already know what to do. It is already what you think about every day.

The key is breaking it down into a tiny little step.

You’ll miss a night. Of course you will. I miss them too.

The toll collector doesn’t get offended; he just waits, tapping the counter with that same patient finger.

When I show up a day later, there’s sometimes a faint blush of guilt or interest added, nothing more.

I hand it over, sigh, and keep walking.

Guilt is only useful when it nudges the next step; left to fester, it becomes an overdraft fee, a payment for nothing.

There are mornings I wake late, head thick with fog, phone buzzing with other people’s highlights.

Some days the scroll wins.

Other days I reach for the smallest shard of might available.

One paragraph in the journal. One stretch that reminds my back it isn’t furniture.

One beracha said with a smidge of concentration.

I’ve written dozens of shaky paragraphs that way.

They don’t sparkle, but they compound. Over time it brought clearer thoughts, a steadier mood, and a body slowly remembering it was built to move.

The key is you do it.

However hard.

You find a way, whatever the toll is.

Maybe you have ADHD, and maybe you have every good excuse in the world not to pay the toll.

You can stick your finger out, pointing to where all the blame lies.

And maybe you'd even be right.

But then you will die one day.

And then when they bury you, they will have to bury you like that with your hand poking out of the grave at everyone else.

And on your gravestone they will write,

“It wasn't his fault.”

And no one will care.

It won't matter.

Because you're dead.

When I picture you fifteen years ahead, maybe coaching your own wide-eyed child through life I hope your notebook pages rustle with steady ink, your muscles recall the cool air of early walks, and your mind recognizes the hush inside a real book.

I pray that when life hands you an outrageous toll, you won’t waste time shouting “unfair!”

You’ll simply nod, reach for the wallet of habits you’ve practiced, and pay with a smile.

Will I slip back into lecture mode at the Shabbos table?

Probably. Old habits limp off slowly.

It's the toll Hashem made you have to pay from time to time.

If any of this lands near your heart, let me know.

If it misses, that’s okay.

The booth will still be open tomorrow, and so will I.

With love that outspends every debt,
Tatty

Read the previous letters here. 1