Hey 40 year old me, how are you? It's cold and late and I cant stop thinking about you. For starters I really hope  you ain't bald, I wouldn't like to be bald. I hope you are handsome and fit. I hope you jog every morning and you take a mix of those awful tasting blended vegetables that you read about from a health colum.

Please tell me you married that girlfriend that was always on your mind. I hope you made a good wife, mother and friend from her. I hope you got two kids a boy and a girl in that order, if not I'm really dissapointed in you. Hope your kids love you a lot and that you ain't a bad overprotective father.

I hope you got a job, quit after 2 years to start your own business, I hope its succesfull. I hope that in those years you made people happy. I hope you tried to change the world, even if it's by throwing that piece of paper in the trash can to ensure the environment is clean. Please tell me you've travelled the world and you aint just stuck there in Nairobi seeing the same damn roads daily.

 I know you've struggled a lot, life ain't fair isn't it? 

I hope you still read lots of books and anything intresting that comes your way. 

Finally, I'm getting sleepy, I hope you've written your own book or an anthology of poems. Oh and before I forget please tell me you still post on prose and that you've won at least 5 or more challenges. Please dont fail me, Ireally hope Ioads of plans for you. Bye bye please reply some day when you get time. I feel like telling you I love but I'm too gangsta for that plus it sounds wierd, so peace bro, I'm out.

I'm too realistic to make this an enthusiastic message from your eighteen year old sponsor.

I know that whatever I'm envisioning for you will not happen.

The cynic in me will never disappear. 

There are some ideals I currently have that I know you'll never live up to.

But I hope that you might.

So I'll list them here so you'll feel guilty and maybe, maybe do something about it.

If you're alive ten years from now, I hope you've got your shit together.

I hope you were courageous enough to do what was best for you.

I hope you forgot about everyone's expectations but your own.

I hope you found the motivation to kick yourself in the ass and be what you always dreamed of.

I hope you defined success for yourself and fucking worked to make it a reality.

I hope you're with the one person you can really, truly depend on.

I hope you're happy with yourself.

I earnestly mean that. Be selfish, do everything you want to try, fuck up. Do it. Just be happy. Goddamn it. Stop wondering why you're here and just live.

If you get another ten years here before leaving somewhere or ceasing to exist, I want you to milk it.

Live. That's it. This doesn't have to be detailed. You don't have to know the hows. You just fucking find a way. Regardless of everything else in this fucked-up world.

And if you haven't done it by now, you're as useless as you always feared you were. 

These things, your hopes and dreams and goals, will all start when you end what's holding you back.

Commercial over.

Dear Erica,

I'm laying in bed under that tie-dye blanket you ex-friend gave you many years ago, practicing answering questions for your interview with your top choice college. I hope you worry less now. I hope you know it isn't worth the stress.

There's an unopened text from the first boy who broke your heart in my inbox. I hope you have recovered from what he did to you. I hope you are still friends because he's the only one who ever got you.

I just got those test scores back, and I am disappointed in myself. I hope you take yourself as you are. I hope you think you're good enough.

The boy you met at that concert has barely said a word to me in weeks, and it's tearing me apart. I hope you are putting yourself first. I hope you have found a love that betters you.

There are fresh scars on my thighs, and I think about adding to them a lot lately. I hope you've overcome your demons. I hope you've found a way to live with yourself.

I hope everyone was right about things getting better.

Much love,

Erica