A letter to the person I will be at 50

Dear Me at Fifty.

I wonder what you look like now. Not physically. I mean the person underneath everything.

I am writing this while I am still young enough to believe that I have plenty of time, and old enough to know that time has a disturbing habit of disappearing without asking permission. Right now, my life is full of things I am supposed to become. A successful person. A financially secure person. A responsible daughter. Someone who can take care of herself and the people she loves.

I wonder which of those things actually happened. Did you become financially secure?. Or did you spent your entire life being afraid of money?

Did you eventually earn enough to stop calculating every expense in your head? Did you clear the responsibilities you were so afraid of? Or did one responsibility simply replace another until you stopped remembering what financial freedom was supposed to feel like?. I want to. Know what you sacrificed to get there

Did you sacrifice your time? Your health? Your friendships? Your curiosity? Did you become one of those people who keeps saying, "I 'll do it someday," untill someday quietly disappears? Did you work so much that your life became nothing more than weekends, salaries, bills, and occasional holidays?

And what happened to the people you love? Are you still close to your family?

Do you still call them just to

Talk about something stupid? Did you spend enough time with them before everyone became too old and too busy? Did you notice when your parents started ageing or did you keep assuming there would always be another year?

I wonder about your friendships too. How many people are still there? How many names have become memories? Did you maintain friendships because you genuinely cares, or did everyone eventually become someone you occasionally look up on social media?

And did you ever travel? Not for work. Not because someone planned it for you. Did you actually go somewhere simply because you wanted to see it? Did you sit in unfamiliar places and realize that there was a world outside the life you were so busy construction?.

More importantly, did you help anyone? I don't mean donating money or doing something impressive enough to mention. Did you ever make someone's life slightly easier?Did you teach someone something? Did you stand beside someone when nobody else did? Did you become the kind of person whose existence mattered to someone besides yourself?

And I need to ask you something I am almost afraid to know. Did you become bitter? Did life make you cynical? Did disappointment turn you cruel?

Did you start judging younger people because you forgot what it felt like to be young and confused? Did you become someone who complains about the world while doing nothing to change the small part of it within your reach?

Most importantly if I met you now would I respect you? Not because of your salary. Not because of your house. Your possessiona. Your position, or anything you managed to collect.

Would I respect the person you became? Because I am not asking you whether you succeeded.

I am asking whether you lived. And if the answer makes you uncomfortable. I hope you don't lie to me. I have enough people in my life already who knows how to pretend everything is fine.