Dear Me,

A letter to myself on my 25th birthday

Little me :)

Dear Me,

As today marks your 25th birthday, I wasn’t sure which version of you to address.

At first, I thought it would be better to address your past self - the person who made decisions and had experiences that led you to this current moment. I was going to take you on a walk down memory lane, and maybe even pick out moments from each age of life that stood out as “monumental” or “life changing”. At 25, I thought you would want to be reminded of how far you’ve come. How free you felt at 9 years old, how stuck you felt in high school, how eager you felt in college, and how awakened you felt solo-traveling across the world. I wanted to show you all of the times that things didn’t go as planned, only to work out in the end. And I also wanted to show you all of the times you planned meticulously, only for things to be so far out of your control. I thought it would be important, at this “turning point age”, for you to recognize not only the dreams you turned into reality but also the dreams you let go of. As a reflective and nostalgic person, oftentimes to a fault, I just assumed you would want to spread out the past like a map and draw out the route that led you here, to this very moment. I assumed you would want to look at the ways your relationships have changed over the years. The different faces at each birthday party- some that stayed there consistently year after year, and others that you may never see again. Yet as I pushed and pressed on your memories trying to begin this process of mourning the old and ringing in the new, your current self would not budge. I tried to ignite memories by playing old songs and looking back at old pictures, only for you to make it clear that the past is not what you are looking to address right now.

I recognized your push back on re-living the old you and honestly, I felt proud of you for not needing to swim through the journey of your past. You usually jump at any opportunity to think about “what was” or “what could have been”. Though as much as I felt proud of you, I also felt confused. Not knowing where to take this next, as I still wanted to find meaning on your birthday- I decided to pivot to the future.

I started illustrating different scenes and moments by piecing together versions of the future that I thought would make you happy. I combined dreams that you’ve declared aloud to the world with aspirations that you’ve shared with close friends only. I made sure to include subconscious wishes as well- sourcing from birthday candles, shooting stars, and even fallen eyelashes throughout the years. In one version of life you were back solo-traveling the world and in the next you were living happily in a city, close by to loved ones that you get to see everyday. In another version you were starting your own company and in the next you were learning a new hobby and in all of them you were writing and you were loved. Some versions had familiar characters from your current life, while others had fictional characters living in fictional cities. Some versions were focused solely on career, others on romantic love, and in some of them family was the main focus. I generated so many versions because the possibilities of your hopes and dreams felt endless. I just wanted you, at 25 years old, to see all of the possibilities that lie ahead.

Yet, when I finally presented each version to you, purposely interrupting your day to day existentialism by drumming up images of you sitting in a cafe in another country, meeting a new lover, or accepting an offer for a dream job, you only seemed overwhelmed. I thought you would be excited I nudged at you, feeling a bit frustrated by your reaction. But I soon understood that the future was not a comfort for you right now. It’s not that you didn’t believe these versions of your future could be true, it’s that you couldn’t yet resonate with them. Not realistically anyway. They felt too far away from you - too full of mystery people in mystery places doing things that aren’t yet on the radar.

I took some time to be still. To let myself think. If you didn’t want to focus on the past that led you here, and you didn’t want to focus on the future either, what did you want to focus on? And just as I was on my way to giving up, I felt a strong tug at my arm. When I looked down, slowly, but already sure of what I was going to see, I saw you standing there waving. 25 years old, by yourself, just waving up at me. I began to smile as I came to the realization, accompanied by the biggest wave of relief.

You just want to focus on right now. This day, and then the next. You don’t want nostalgia to block your present and you don’t want the unknown of the future to consume your day to day. You just wanted me to address you. The present you- the one here in front of me. The one that shows up everyday - the current version.

I was surprised at how long it took me to come up with what to say, and it made me realize I may have been avoiding this version of you for a reason. Your current life is full of the unknown. Relationships put on pause as they wait to morph into something you can label, day to day tasks feeling meaningless and sometimes full of dread, not knowing how this version of you reacts to certain news, ideas, or disappointments. It’s not an easy task to try to make sense of life for someone who has exited one door but not yet entered the next. And so I decided I won’t try to make sense of it for you. I won’t try to put you in a box or give you a certain perspective or say a single word about these big and real feelings you experience daily. To the version of you in between both doors, I will create a room for you to lie down in the hallway. I will grab a pillow and a blanket and I will sit there with you, for however long you want to stay.

25 has a lot of pressure to it. Met with terms like “quarter life crises”, or being known as the year your frontal lobe fully develops, it calls for more expectations than any other birthday before. It’s as if the world decided that all of a sudden, you’ve finally begun life as a real life adult human being. Yet it’s funny- I’ve felt older and more sure of myself at many other ages in my life than I do at 25. At this moment in time, I feel like I simultaneously know the most I ever have and the least I ever have all in one breath.

Yes, things feel messy, Yes, things feel unknown. The past has run its course, and the future is unwritten. You are living in a place of “no longer” and “not yet”. But what you are experiencing now - including every emotion from the highest high to the lowest low- is necessary. Every day, you are growing, learning, and shifting into a more experienced, more human, more authentic version of you. Turning 25 doesn’t have to mean you let go of the past once and for all. And it also doesn’t have to mean you focus on building a specific future. It can just mean that right now, sitting in the hallway in between two closed doors, you create a new room for yourself. And that new room, full of confusion and excitement and pain and hope, that is exactly where you are meant to be.

Huh, I guess I did have something to say to this version of you after all :)

Thank you for reading <3