Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.

Filler VIII

Oi! What’s up, RJ?! If you ended up this far in life, that’s an impressive feat! I’m writing this letter at 37 years old, and Nana is still on this earth at 95 years old, so I suppose long life is in our gene pool but nevertheless impressive! I take it you found this letter in a box full of our old shit that was in storage for years. Or to be fair, whoever finds this letter. I don’t have much to say, so I’ll try not to be too long-winded. Writing to myself seems like a plot of a sci-fi movie, but here we go.

I hope you figured life out better than I have at the age where I am right now as you experienced because the state of the world is a very confusing place right now, and hopefully, that has gotten better over the years. When the clock hit midnight on New Years Eve in 2023 to 2024, I had a wave of nostalgia and optimism, and that’s not usually a feeling I have because we know very well how pessimistic as fuck, I can be. Despite how drunk I was when that clock hit 12, I felt really good that things for me would start to look up. Finding the right opportunities. finding the right girl to have a life with. Finding a creative format to continue to do what I love to do on my free time even if there is no career or financial gain from it. Maybe you have found all those things as we have gotten older but no spoilers! As much as I am curious, I don’t want to see into the future because my thing now is just living and being in the present, in reality and not some fake Instagram life that these “influencers” peddle on a daily basis. I hope things have looked up for you in your world so I can look forward to that future.

The most important thing I want to say is after all that time before you had reached 100, I pray that you are still the good man that our friends and family know me at my current age. Kept working on yourself to be a better man every day and help people who need it, even if it’s an inconvenience to you. I hope you still lived by the phrase “when you expect nothing, your never disappointed,” because you shouldn’t seek reward or recognition for helping others when they need it. It’s nice but don’t expect it because that karma bank is important. Respect is priceless and despite what that this world tells us in the world we live in right now as I am writing this, showing people that you give a shit is not a sign of weakness, if anything its strength! Strength to put your hand out to help someone even though you don’t have much to offer. Even as something as little as letting a friend vent can make all the difference in someone’s life. Money doesn’t solve all your problems despite what billionaire influencers tell us. I hope that part of society with that mindset has changed as you lived to be 100 and I guess I’ll find out soon enough, if I don’t expire before that milestone.

Last thing, if anyone finds this letter, my notebooks, drawings or anything else I have written please share it with the extended family. Share it with the kids if I ended up having any. Share any photos or anything from the music collection that we have been building since we were 13 since we bought the CD for Korn’s Follow the Leader in 1998. Share photos of friends who I was with throughout the years and maybe our children would have known who they are from stories I have talked about my past. It’s important to share history with our loved ones and not just the mistakes I have made and learned from that make us better men but also the fun times where we laughed our Irish asses until our gut started hurting as we sip on a stiff whiskey and soda and kept making jokes with each other. Those are the best times in my opinion hands down. Those times with friends, family, going to events and having fun interactions with people, that shit is also priceless. Thats the most important as you know, and I hope you lived it too as much as you have made a good living for yourself and your family if you have one, if we had one…

Well, thanks for reading you old fuck! Hahaha, and I appreciate you finding this letter and I pray it was a life well lived. See you on the other side RJ Dude.

Oi!

Note: The title Litir Chugam Féin is Irish for “Letter to Myself”.