Notes to My Future Self

The first note was dated five years ago.

It wasn’t written with elegant handwriting or on scented paper. Just a crumpled sticky note tucked between the pages of an old journal I hadn’t opened in years. The ink had bled slightly, probably from tears I didn’t remember crying.

"You’re not broken. You’re still building."

I stared at it for a long time, heart pounding. I hadn’t remembered writing it, but it was my handwriting. The kind I had in college—hurried, slightly crooked, always in blue ink. I flipped the journal open, and more notes fluttered out like autumn leaves caught in a draft.

Some were dated, others not. Some were just single lines:
"Call Mom. Even when you’re mad."
"Success isn’t peace. Choose peace."
"Don’t marry the person who makes you feel small."

I read each one like they were sacred texts, letters from the version of me that had felt everything harder, hoped more recklessly, and somehow had the foresight to leave breadcrumbs back to myself.




I was thirty-five now. A marketing director in a tech firm. I had a two-bedroom apartment that looked like a Pinterest board come to life. People said I was successful. Confident. Sharp.

But I hadn’t felt whole in a long time.

It was like I’d built my life on a tightrope—always one wrong step away from falling, but somehow still smiling at the crowd watching from below.

Until the day the tightrope snapped.

It was a Tuesday. Of course it was. Nothing ever breaks on a dramatic Friday. Just a regular morning—email, coffee, an impromptu meeting—and suddenly, I was standing in the office kitchen, gripping the edge of the counter, unable to breathe.

Anxiety attack, the doctor called it. Said it was probably long overdue. Burnout. Stress. Unprocessed grief.

Grief?

I didn’t know what I was grieving until I opened that journal again later that night.




"Future Me,
I hope you still dance barefoot in the kitchen.
I hope you forgive people, but not so much that you forget what you deserve.
I hope you didn’t give up writing."

I hadn’t written in years.

Once, writing was everything. My sanctuary, my rebellion, my way of making sense of a world that didn’t always make room for sensitivity. But over time, deadlines replaced dreams. KPIs replaced poems. I traded my journals for spreadsheets.

And now, here I was—reading a note from a girl who still believed in magic. Who trusted herself enough to leave behind words for a woman she hoped she’d become.

I wasn’t sure I’d lived up to her expectations.




Over the following weeks, I read every note. I cried through some. Laughed out loud at others. There was one that simply said:

"Just because it’s familiar doesn’t mean it’s love."

That one hit harder than I expected.

It reminded me of Adam.

Adam, with his charming smile and emotionally unavailable heart. We were together for two years. I called it love. But looking back, it was more like habit wrapped in fear of loneliness. I’d stayed long after the warmth had faded, convincing myself that comfort was enough.

My younger self had seen it coming. Had written a warning. I just hadn’t read it in time.




Inspired, I began writing back.

“Dear Past Me,” I scrawled late one night, wine glass half-empty beside me.
“You were right. About more than I ever gave you credit for.”

I wrote about the days I’d felt like quitting. The friendships I let fade because I was too “busy.” The moments I had stood in front of the mirror and hated my reflection—not for how I looked, but for how far I’d strayed from who I wanted to be.

But I also wrote about healing. About finally understanding that success isn’t climbing a ladder—it’s learning when to step off. I told her that I had started dancing again in the kitchen, barefoot and unbothered. That I had called Mom.

That I had started writing again.


---

One evening, I invited a few close friends over. We poured wine and passed around blank notecards.

“Write a note to your future self,” I told them. “Something you’ll want to remember five years from now.”

They looked skeptical at first, but eventually, the room grew quiet as pens moved across paper. We sealed the notes in envelopes, wrote the date on the outside, and agreed to meet again in five years to open them.

A small ritual of hope.




Now, the journal is thicker than ever. Filled with letters to and from my past selves. A map of mistakes, lessons, and little victories.

And every now and then, when I feel lost again, I turn the pages.

I don’t always find answers. But I find myself.



If you’re reading this, maybe write a note today. Not for who you are now—but for who you hope to be.

She’ll thank you for it.

I know I did.