Every year for my birthday, I write myself a letter.
I decided this year as my gift to you all I would publish it on my site in hopes to inspire you to adopt this practice ; or just the opportunity to get a taste of my life, juicy secrets, and experiences, enjoy :)
I think everyone should try this exercise at least once. There is something valuable about freezing yourself in time and documenting who you are before another 365 days changes you:
5:43 AM 6/10/2026
Yesterday I had the honor of closing a chapter and beginning to prepare for a new decade of experiences.
I spent my birthday riding waterslides, race cars, playing arcade games, laser tag and ended it with a bubble bath and Taco Bell.
While I do find something lovely in being able to relax to the fullest extent and let your inner child run free without any care for your "real-world problems", I only share my "glamorous" itinerary with you to prove my point:
I am profoundly hedonistic.
I think this generation was formulated to be, and sold the idea that it was ambition instead.
I've spent most of my life chasing whatever was next.
The next dollar.
The next Instagram like.
The next accomplishment.
The next opportunity.
The next thing.
And for a long time, I thought that was ambition.
Now I'm beginning to wonder if it was something else entirely.
PT. 2 11:14 AM
I was raised as an only child by a single parent, which meant I spent much of my life alone.
People often assume that creates independence.
It does.
But it also creates some strange blind spots.
One of mine is that I've never had a particularly complicated relationship with wanting things.
As a child, the process was simple.
Did I want something?
Yes or no.
If yes, my next task was figuring out who to ask.
The right teacher.
The right family member.
The right adult.
The right person who had the authority to say yes.
More often than not, it worked.
And if it didn't work the first time, I would simply find another door to knock on.
The embarrassing realization I've had recently is that this strategy still works as an adult.
Most opportunities I've had happened because I asked.
Most experiences I've had happened because I asked.
Most relationships I've built started because I asked.
Most of the things I've wanted eventually became mine because I was willing to keep knocking until someone opened the door.
The problem is that when life repeatedly rewards that behavior, you stop asking whether something is worth wanting.
You become obsessed with whether it can be obtained.
Do I get it or not?
That becomes the entire game.
Not whether it's meaningful.
Not whether it's aligned with who you want to become.
Not whether you'll care about it six months from now.
Just whether you can have it.
And if you're naturally impulsive, curious, ambitious, and slightly addicted to novelty like I am, that's a dangerous game to play.
Because eventually your entire life becomes a pursuit.
You chase money because you can.
You chase attention because you can.
You chase validation because you can.
You chase people because you can.
And somewhere along the way, you forget to ask why.
The strange thing about hedonism is that it disguises itself as living life to the fullest.
You convince yourself you're collecting experiences.
What you're actually collecting is stimulation.
The difference took me an embarrassingly long time to understand.
I don't regret the adventures.
I don't regret the ridiculous stories.
I certainly don't regret spending my birthday at a waterpark.
What I regret is how often I was absent from my own life while living it.
How often I was mentally standing in tomorrow while physically existing in today.
How often I achieved something only to immediately move the goalpost.
How often I met wonderful people while secretly wondering what was next.
Nothing was ever enough because enough was never the objective.
The chase was.
And when the chase becomes your identity, people start experiencing you differently.
Looking back, that's the part that embarrasses me.
Not the mistakes.
The embarrassment comes from realizing how many people had to experience me while I was operating from that mindset.
People who deserved my attention but got my distraction.
People who deserved my presence but got my ambition.
People who were trying to love me while I was busy trying to become someone else.
There are moments from the past few years that make me cringe.
I was cruel and I was asleep.
Asleep inside a life that was actually quite beautiful.
That's the thing nobody tells you.
You can waste a beautiful life without doing anything catastrophic.
You can waste a beautiful life simply by never being present for it.
By constantly waiting for the next achievement.
The next relationship.
The next vacation.
The next version of yourself.
I've spent much of my life believing that fulfillment existed somewhere in the future.
Just beyond the next accomplishment.
Just beyond the next milestone.
Just beyond the next version of me.
But the older I get, the more I suspect fulfillment was never hiding in the future at all.
It was sitting quietly in ordinary moments I refused to appreciate.
The friend I forgot to call back.
The dinner I rushed through.
The conversation I wasn't fully listening to.
The people I assumed would always be there.
For someone who spent so much of her life alone, I find it ironic that the greatest lesson of being nineteen had nothing to do with independence.
It had everything to do with people.
I used to think being self-made was proof that I didn't need anyone.
Now I think being self-made might be one of the biggest myths we tell ourselves.
Every opportunity I have exists because someone gave me one.
Every lesson I know was taught by somebody.
Somewhere during the second half of nineteen, I started realizing how much I actually need the people around me.
Not for survival, but for meaning.
Those are very different things.
Achievement, attention, and validation don't create meaning.
People do.
Presence does.
And maybe growing up is realizing that.
Someone once told me that the difference between a child and an adult is delayed gratification.
A child wants the reward without the struggle but an adult learns to tolerate the struggle because they understand what it produces.
I think there's truth in that.
But I think adulthood is also learning that some things aren't meant to be pursued at all; some things are solely meant to be appreciated.
I don't have any great wisdom to offer.
I'm still impulsive.
Still ambitious.
Still easily distracted by shiny things.
Still capable of making spectacularly questionable decisions.
But I am beginning to understand something that would have confused a younger version of me:
The best parts of my life were never the things I was chasing.
They were the people standing beside me while I chased them.
And if the next 365 days teach me anything, I hope it's how to recognize that before another beautiful year passes me by.
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