“Letters to My Future Self (Who Never Arrived)”

Letters to My Future Self (Who Never Arrived)

When I was sixteen, I used to write letters to my future self. I kept them in a shoebox under my bed, next to old concert tickets, broken friendship bracelets, and the kind of secrets that only made sense in the language of adolescence.

The first letter began: Dear Me, age 30. Are you happy? Do you live in a city with trees and bookstores? Have you found someone who understands you, really understands you?

I remember thinking that 30 was impossibly far away—so distant it might as well have been another planet. Thirty-year-olds were adults with mortgages and opinions about health insurance. They bought throw pillows and drank red wine that didn’t come from a box. They had things figured out.

Last weekend, while cleaning out my mother’s attic, I found the shoebox. It was under a blanket that smelled like old cedar and forgotten summers. When I opened it, the smell of paper and dust rose up—something like memory itself.

There they were: thirteen letters, each sealed with cheap stickers or bits of tape, labeled in uneven handwriting. “Open when you’re 30.” “Open when you’re successful.” “Open when you fall in love.”

I’m 30 now.

But not the 30 I thought I’d be.

I opened the first letter carefully, afraid the paper might disintegrate.

Dear Me, age 30. You’re probably a famous writer by now. You live in Paris or New York. You wake up early to drink coffee by a window overlooking the city. Maybe you have a cat. Or two. I hope you never gave up on writing. I hope you’re still weird, still soft, still dreaming.

The handwriting was round and uncertain, full of hope that didn’t yet know the weight of disappointment.

I laughed out loud. Paris! I live in a second-floor apartment above a laundromat in a city that smells like exhaust and rain. I’m not a famous writer. I write marketing copy for a skincare brand. Some days, it feels like I’ve been writing apologies for capitalism since college.

Still, the letter made something in me ache. That sixteen-year-old—she believed in me. She thought I’d have magic by now.

The second letter was written when I was seventeen.

Dear Me, I hope you’ve stopped pretending to like people who don’t make you feel good. I hope you stopped saying “sorry” for everything. Are you brave now? Do you say what you mean? Do you still cry when you hear sad songs?

I sat there on the attic floor, surrounded by boxes of my mother’s life and the faint hum of a distant washing machine.

Brave. I wanted to tell her that bravery looks different than she thought. It’s not standing on a stage or chasing love across the world. Sometimes it’s just getting up again, replying to emails, or leaving someone who doesn’t see you. Sometimes it’s learning to eat breakfast when you don’t feel like you deserve to.

By the fifth letter, my eyes were burning.

Dear Me, please don’t lose the things that make you you. Please don’t trade your heart for a paycheck. Please don’t stop writing poems, even if no one reads them.

That one hurt the most.

Because I had stopped. Somewhere between student loans and heartbreak, I stopped writing anything that didn’t pay. The part of me that believed art could save me had gone quiet. I’d traded metaphors for meeting deadlines. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t mean to. That I didn’t even notice it happening.

By the time I reached the last envelope, the sun had slipped through the attic window, painting everything gold. The letter was dated the week before I turned eighteen.

Dear Me (if you exist), it began. I’m scared that I won’t. That somewhere between now and thirty, I’ll disappear. I’m afraid I’ll forget what it feels like to want things. I’m afraid I’ll stop caring about being kind. If you’re reading this, please, just tell me I made it. Tell me we turned out okay.

The air went heavy around me.

I whispered, “We made it,” but my voice cracked. Because the truth is—I don’t know if we did.

I don’t own a house. I don’t have children. I’m not famous, or fearless, or whole. But I’ve learned to love things that sixteen-year-old me never understood: quiet mornings, slow forgiveness, the way pain reshapes you without permission.

I’ve learned that “okay” doesn’t always look like success—it sometimes just means surviving your own expectations.

I gathered the letters back into the box, but not before adding one more. A new one.

Dear Past Me, I wrote. You were right to be afraid. Growing up does hurt. But you were wrong about disappearing. You never vanished—you just changed shape. You became someone who pays bills and still cries at sad songs. Someone who writes in secret notebooks instead of online. Someone who still loves stories, even if no one’s watching.

We didn’t become the person you imagined. But we became a person who can finally forgive you for believing in her too much.

I placed the letter on top of the others and closed the box.

For the first time in years, I didn’t feel like I’d failed my younger self.

I just felt like I’d finally met her.