Time moves like water—
Carving, shaping, erasing.
What remains when the tide recedes?
Dear Me, at 100,
If you are reading this, it means you made it. Somehow, despite everything—the near-misses, the impossible days, the moments you thought would break you—you are still here. That alone is something worth honoring.
I wonder what your hands look like now. Are they still restless, still searching for things to create? Or have they learned the quiet grace of stillness? Do you still trace the rim of your coffee cup when you think? Do your feet still find their way to the ocean when life feels too heavy?
Are you alone right now? Or is someone beside you, someone whose presence has woven itself into your days so seamlessly that you no longer question it? If they are, I hope you tell them how much they mean to you. If they are not, I hope you have learned that solitude is not the same as loneliness.
What do you regret? Not in the grand, sweeping way people fear regret, but in the quiet, almost imperceptible moments—the words you never spoke, the doors you hesitated to walk through, the hands you let go of too soon. And yet, if you could go back, would you change them? Or have you finally made peace with the fact that life is meant to be unfinished?
Is there music playing? I hope there is. I hope you still hum along to songs you loved when you were young. I hope you still close your eyes when your favorite part comes on. I hope your heart still swells at the sound of a well-played melody, the way it always did.
Do you still dream? Not the soft, untethered dreams of sleep, but the kind that make your fingers twitch with the need to create. Do you still wonder what comes next, even after a hundred years? I hope so. Because the day you stop wondering, the day you stop searching, is the day you truly grow old.
And, my dear self, if you are tired—if your bones ache in a way that no rest can fix—know this: You have lived. Fully, imperfectly, beautifully. You have loved and lost and tried and failed and started again. And that, in the end, is all that ever mattered.
If you can, stand up. Walk to the nearest mirror. Look yourself in the eye and say: You made it. Say it twice, if you have to. Say it until you believe it.
I hope you are smiling. I hope you are warm. And I hope, after all this time, you are still you.
With love,
Me, from a lifetime ago.
life 