A Letter to My Future Self—Ten Years From Now

Hey, you.

Ten years. It feels like a lifetime and a blink at the same time. If you’re reading this, I guess we made it. Not to perfection, not to some flawless destination, but to somewhere. A different version of life. One that hopefully feels more grounded, more lived in, more yours.

First, I hope you're still soft. I hope the world didn’t harden you in the ways I was always afraid it would. I hope you still cry at movies, still get goosebumps from a good song, still believe in late-night talks and unexpected kindness. I know life has probably chipped at your edges, but I hope it didn’t erase your ability to feel things deeply, even when it hurts.

Have you finally learned to rest without guilt? Are you still trying to prove your worth through productivity, or did you finally realize that just existing is enough? I hope you sleep in when you need to. I hope you take long walks without a destination. I hope your calendar has more white space and less pressure.

I wonder what we’re doing now. What passions survived the noise of growing up? Did you stick with the writing? The dreaming? The way you always saw stories in the smallest things—like the way someone holds their coffee cup or the silence before someone says, “I’m fine,” but doesn’t mean it? I hope you never lost that lens, the one that turned ordinary moments into meaning.

Are we still close with the people we swore we’d never lose? I know life pulls people in different directions. Some friendships fade, not because anyone failed, but because seasons shift. But I hope you held onto the ones that matter—the ones who saw you at your messiest and stayed. The ones who reminded you who you were when you forgot.

How’s your heart? Is it still open? I know we’ve been hurt. We’ve loved people who couldn’t love us back and stayed in places longer than we should have. But I hope you’ve forgiven us for that. I hope you see now that none of it was wasted—that every heartbreak, every wrong turn, was shaping something in you, even when it didn’t make sense at the time.

I hope you stopped shrinking. That you walk into rooms without wondering if you’re too much or not enough. I hope you stopped apologizing for taking up space—for having opinions, for needing boundaries, for wanting more. I hope you finally realized that your softness is not weakness, and your silence does not mean agreement.

Maybe life looks different than we pictured. Maybe the dreams we once had shifted or disappeared entirely. That’s okay. Plans change. People evolve. I just hope you didn’t lose yourself in the chaos. I hope you didn’t trade your joy for safety, or your wonder for routine. I hope you still chase the things that light you up, even if they don’t make sense to anyone else.

And if things are hard right now—if the weight feels heavier than you imagined—it’s okay. Just keep going. You’ve survived every version of rock bottom so far. That says something. That says everything.

This isn’t a roadmap, it’s a reminder. Of who we were. Of what we hoped for. Of what we believed we could become. So if you’re reading this and you’ve drifted—come back. To the passion. To the softness. To the spark.

We’re still in here. Still becoming.

With all my hope,

—You