I’ve been writing to myself since 2018. Picking up writing has been one of the best ways to reflect, stop time, and align myself on what truly matters to me.
I write letters to myself because I know she’s evolving. Emily every day is changing, but at her core, she’s the same person who knows what she wants. The decisions we make every day have become the matrix of your life and filters are built. I don’t want filters, but I have filters every where. I bite my tongue to risk the feelings of others, to be politically correct, to mold into this society, and to filter out the wrong people. Maybe it’s with writing that I can feel the most myself—sometimes when I read my essays, I can hear myself clearly reading it out loud. She’s authentic and she knows herself.
Why it helps me
Writing these letters are only for me. This letter helps me realign on what I wanted back then and if I’m where I want to be. It helps me remember all the things I was feeling and it also helps me move on. The reminders just tell me that I’ve progressed so much in that span of time. To be honest, it’s myself validating myself and it’s the encouragement I need.
This is terrible to say, but some of my best writing pieces have come from a glass of wine—it’s me, cross legged and sitting on the balcony of my condo in Singapore. Sometimes I cry and I don’t know why. I’m not sad, but there’s a sense of loss and frustration that I get when I allow myself to be vulnerable.
Or perhaps it’s a sense of relief to let the walls fall down, just for that one hour of wine and writing. And it’s the acceptance that once that hour is up, my walls are back up again.
I let you take a look into the future letters I’ve wrote to myself. They’re all received—I’m mostly consistent with sending a birthday letter to myself on November 23rd. I can expect one from myself each year. One of the biggest reasons I ended up leaving Singapore is also because I just felt like I needed to move on and go build what I wanted to for the longest time. Seeing family and spending quality time with them was also another reason.
Hope you enjoy these personal FutureMe essays and I hope I inspire you to write one to yourself as well. The platform has been helping people sending letters to the future for almost 20+ years. I hope you can support them and share their site with anyone who may benefit from it.
But before you start reading below, please play The Lighthouse Keeper by Sam Smith. It’s my writing song. Enjoy.
Lurve,
Em
