Dear J, If you are reading this now, I didn't make it. I asked your mom to give you this letter whenever you face your first existential crisis as an adult. As I write this letter, I am looking at your ultrasound, and to be honest, I'm a little scared. Will I live long enough to see you fully grown? Will your mom and I be able to provide a solid life for you? Would we scar you with trauma too deep to heal from? Unfortunately, it's been a little more than two decades since I wrote this, and all I can do is hope that we were enough. However, I know for a fact that you are in your early twenties, armed with your mother's beauty, fierceness, and my curiosity. I also know that at this point, just like me, you are trying to figure out where you fit in life, and if you turned out anything like me, this will be all-consuming. But first, how are you? What are you up to these days? What are your dreams? Are you as passionate as fire and as welcoming as the waves? How is your mother? Does she talk about me? Did she find love again, or is that part of her heart locked away? I fear that these are answers I may never know, and I can only hope that the time we spent together was enough. However, that is enough of the questions and musings. Consider this letter a delayed inheritance, in which I bestow five things that will help you build the best life possible. The first thing I can give is love. I want you to know that no matter what your life looks like, I love you and I'm proud of you. When the world feels lonely and dark, remember there is love at home. I have loved you since the very first idea of you crossed my mind, and I hope you love yourself even more fiercely. The second thing I can give you is a sprinkle of confidence. I may not be with you physically, but in the words of your grandma, I have prayed for you, and your name was penned on the list of the greats. I know that you are smart and have all it takes to kick the heck out of life and make me proud. Whenever you are in doubt, remember how impressive your mother is and that you are no doubt an upgrade. My third gift is perception. Life is hard, but that is its blessing. You never know how far you can climb without mountains in front of you. You don't know how much you can stretch until pressure threatens to pull you apart. You do not know how much greatness resides in you until you choose not to cower in fear. When you feel cold, remember that there are many ways to keep warm. The way you frame your problems affects your ability to scale them. My fourth gift is pacing. Take your time, savour each moment, enjoy the small things, and try as much as you are interested in; don't worry about ten years from now. Take one day at a time. One foot and then another. Take moments to breathe. Work hard, but learn to unwind. Untangle yourself from unnecessary expectations and live freely. My last gift is community. Connect with people who show genuine interest in you. Open your heart responsibly. Life is meant to be shared, and some of my greatest moments have been shared with my greatest companions. You will be hurt, and you may be taken advantage of. You may be burned by people. But share love, grief, joy, and gifts. Life is worth sharing with others. Finally, I leave you with this truth. You are enough. You are capable, you are loved. And this season is just one of many designed to make you even better and stronger. I wish I could do more: hold your hands, share more wisdom, listen to your rants, and buy ice cream afterwards. But that's alright, I left money for ice cream with your mom; all you need to do is ask.

This is what social anxiety feels like. I finally drag myself out of my house, because and only because I believe that the event I am going for is super important. I stand and watch nervously as people interact. I take deep breaths and remind myself that I am quite the extrovert when I want to be. I summon the courage to talk to someone or someone summons the courage to talk to me. The conversation starts smoothly enough, I find out that the person is pretty impressive and then the person asks me “so what do you do?”. I panic, partly because I happen to have quite a long list of hobbies and also because I know that the real question the person asked is, “what do you do for a living?”. At this time I feel a drop of sweat slide between my butt cheeks. A chill numbs my tongue as I fight all the thoughts running berserk in my skull. Did I tell you that I am a pretty good actor? So I support my chin with my hand, run an errant finger through my beards and reply as Philosopher-like as possible “I find it hard to…” I cough, stealthily scrutinizing my voice for squeaks “... classify or define my self…” then I proceed to tell a short inspirational tale of my life. Oftentimes the person sees through my ruse and bold facedly proceeds to ask me what I do for a living and this time I awkwardly reply that I am a writer. So maybe I am not socially awkward, maybe I am just afraid of certain conversations. Why do I place so much value on being able to fit in a box? Why do I suddenly attach my self worth to how much I earn? Some times I ponder on the oxymoron that has become my life? I wonder why my ideals scare me. Why I suddenly want to fit in a box or why money has suddenly become synonymous with my self-worth. Maybe it is because I am getting older and I suddenly feel the need for stability. Maybe it is because the world feels a little heavier as the days pass. Maybe it is because of her and our dream. Maybe I didn't really believe in my ideals. Maybe.

‘Can't you speak up', my best friend's dad would roar, ‘is that how you greet an elder'? My three-year-old self would then duck behind my mother in a futile attempt to escape his scowling face. I would then try my best to gather some lost courage and reply. ‘Good afternoon sir' I would bravely cry as I cowered behind the hem of my mom's dress. It wasn't the first time he did this and though he had since stopped, my guts take a dive every time I see him. My mom like clockwork would laugh at the situation, pat me on my head and reply ‘Toks you are a bully oo', I didn't understand why she did that. I couldn't. Why would my mom laugh at my pain? Why would she laugh at my fear? Looking back now, it is amazing to think that as scared of him as I was then, I would still push to go see my best friend. This, however, is not a story of bravery. It is a story of fear - crippling fear. My mom once told me that in my first two years on earth, flowers terrified me. She told me this laughing of course, and I can only imagine how she laughed at this silly fear when I was a two-year-old child. Later on, the wooden bust statuettes my paternal grandparents littered around to decorate their house scared me stiff. Till tomorrow I have this sinking feeling in my stomach every time my parents call me privately into their room. I was barely four years old when I learnt to ride the bicycle. In the beginning, I used to push my bike up gentle slopes and then glide down. However, when the ground was even, I would push myself with my stick-like legs trying to gather enough momentum to propel the bike. Soon after though, my training wheels fell off and if I wasn't super careful, the metal that held the training wheels dug into my flesh as I paddled along. My fear of getting injured, coupled with the fear that my friend would be the coolest kid on the block if I didn't beat him, reduced my learning curve. Unfortunately for me, my friend still learnt faster than I did. I was once scared of love. Ironically, this stemmed from seeing my parent's marriage work almost flawlessly. Falling in love with an imperfect person terrified me but, soon the fear of losing that love grew stronger than my ideas on perfection. Now, I fight to silence the voices in and out of my head that tell me that long distance relationships never work out. My greatest fear, however, is this; that I would go through life not finding the work that makes me tick. It is me not finding purpose; it is me living for myself and not adding value to the people around me. This fear wakes with me in the morning and keeps me on my feet. In all honesty, I am a man of many fears. But if anything, these fears have made me more resolute. Maybe fear isn't so horrible after all.