Self love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting

Dear Nadine,

I haven’t written letters in so long that I’m not quite sure how to do this.

If you have made it as far into the future, I suppose you have managed to survive the anxiety and anger you were feeling when everything around you defied a logical explanation. Maybe you have learned that things are not as extreme as you perceive them. Although, being a Leo, I’m intrigued how you have managed to curb your tendency to overreact.

If you have made it as far into the future, I hope you have outgrown therapy or, at least, have found a therapist that does not seem to need help more than you do and, managed to open up and allowed yourself to be helped.

If you have made it as far into the future, I hope you danced as much and often as you could and that you have managed to read all the books you wanted to read and kept your to read pile always high.

If you made it as far into the future, I hope you have understood how to deal with the pain of losing loved ones and that you have kept your friends close by. I hope that living alone has not been too much of a burden and that you have enjoyed your freedom.

If you made it this far into the future, I guess you have mastered your horrible tendency to procrastinate. Maybe you followed through with all your plans and are now living in some Greek island surrounded by blue.

I hope you have always carried with you all the songs that have helped life make sense and that your inner soundtrack keeps growing.

I hope you have not gotten lost inside yourself. I hope you still remember.

I hope you have kept the passion and that you have not become indifferent to people, to beauty. I hope you still believe that elegance is a form of resistance.

I hope you have never stayed quiet in the face of injustice, that you have helped others and, that your world is much better than the one right now. I hope you haven’t given in.

I hope you have owned your choices and that you have always insisted on being the Sun and never a black hole.

Even if you do not look like the AI projected version of yourself, I hope your eyes keep showing that your name is Hope instead of impossible.

I hope you still like poetry even if you have never managed to write a single line of verse.

Dear future self
By JP Howard

If  I should ever forget you,
this is my love note to you

You were loved
You were somebody’s lover
You were loving
You held parts of all the women you loved,
somewhere deep in your generous heart

You were heartbroken
You were a heartbreaker too, girl
Sometimes you were heartache
Your heart never grew heavy though,
I remember that about you

You were silly
You were giggles
You were somebody’s Mama
You always wanted to be a Mama
Mama was the greatest title you ever had

You were jealous as fuck
You were selfish
You were sad
You held other folks’ sadness,
especially Mama’s sadness
You buried that deep in our heart

You were swag girl
Leo charm and confidence
Couldn’t nobody crack you up
as much as yourself

You were cute and you were vain
You wore lipstick under your mask
during a pandemic
because you were cute and you were vain

You loved your family
Your lover loved you for decades
Sometimes you would ask yourself,
How I get so lucky, girl?

You loved people
You were at home on a stage in front of a mic,
sitting with community in a circle,
or talking one on one with a friend
for hours on end in a coffee shop

You were a poet
You are a poet
This is your love poem to yourself, Juliet

References
Henry the V, Act 2, scene 4