i hope you’re still here.

Dear Future Me, play: sigriswil - kim kyoung hee (it’s my favourite song now.) Hearing this from others may not make you happy but hearing it from past you might. Happy 30th birthday. Today is 20 July 2020, 3.30am. You are lying on the bed trying to fall asleep. Nothing is wrong and Jw’s hand is on you. you just felt like writing this letter, after seeing a random tweet about Haruma Miura’s letter to himself. Nothing is really right either. You just lost your job and have no sense of direction anymore. Adulting is kicking in. you’ll be buying your critical care insurance this week (i hope you’re almost done paying off now). you voted for the first time this month. you’re about to enter your first stock investment. and you’re about to pay off your first income tax of $331. It’s a large sum, especially now that you’re jobless. it’s the fourth month of the covid-19 period (for singapore at least). it’s just as serious as when it started, just that people stopped regarding it as it is. i think we are all tired. it’s not much of a life being quarantined and stuck in an economic crisis. i think people see less of ***** now. oh, and you just lost your grandmother last month. you only cried four times. i hope you’re able to deal with your emotions better now because currently nothing fazes me anymore. i hope you’re mentally healthier and i hope you feel things that need to be felt. how’re you? you don’t have to be good, but i hope you’re better. are you still alive? when you were young you never saw a life past 30. are you married now? do you have a daughter? a dog? your own home? i hope everything goes well as planned because currently happiness feels too far away. it seems like i’ll only be happy in the future, so all there is now is the pursuit of happiness. so please, i hope you’re better, and i hope you can find it within yourself to be happy. and i hope charlie is still alive. if things are not going so well... it’s okay. i mean, it has to be okay. i don’t really know what to say. i’m proud of you for making it this far. i don’t really know what else to say. i’m proud, but i’m disappointed. i don’t know if i have it in me to tell you things will eventually get better. i hope it does, that’s why i’m writing this letter. if life is still tiring... keep doing the next right thing. and maybe my birthday gift to you is this- maybe it’s time to start doing things that make You happy now. i can’t see myself at 40. honestly my future seemed to start and end at 30. so you, reading this, you can do what you want now. your pursuit of happiness seems to be over. if you are, you are. if you’re not, i hope you start being happy instead of following it around, and do so with no regard for the future. live as if there’s no tomorrow. spend money on yourself without guilt. if the time comes when you run out of happiness, i know an easy way out. i’m sorry i’m writing this assuming you might not be fine. assuming you’re at your worst and at the end of the road. deep down i think you might. afterall, i haven’t been okay for 24 years. so i came to edit this letter. i hope you look at this in disgust today. i hope you look at this and can’t recognise me. i hope it’s difficult for you to remember a time like this. i hope you are not me anymore, and i hope life is kinder to you. if that is so - i hope this letter would make you smile instead. to remember how far you’ve come, and to appreciate emotional freedom. you’re good now. and i hope your next letter to 40 year old me will be something lighter. goodnight. oh, and watch Crash Landing On You again. i hope you bought all the sitcoms by now. you should if you haven’t, please don’t be mean to yourself anymore. With all the courage i can muster, Past You