Chapter 17 - The Ten-Year Letter
After dinner, Susan gave Maya an envelope.
“What is this?”
“Something you wrote.”
Maya opened it.
The handwriting belonged to her twenty-two-year-old self.
She remembered.
A letter she had written after leaving Northwestern.
At the top:
TEN YEARS FROM NOW.
Maya read silently.
I hope I built something.
I hope Dad stops thinking I’m irresponsible.
I hope Mom understands.
I hope Emily respects me.
I hope David stops laughing at my ideas.
And if none of that happens, I hope I still respect myself.
Maya stopped.
Tears blurred the page.
Susan sat beside her.
“You wrote that the night you told us you were leaving school.”
“You kept it?”
“Yes.”
Maya read the final sentence again.
I hope I still respect myself.
At twenty-two, she thought success would mean proving everyone wrong.
At thirty-two, she understood differently.
Success was surviving long enough to stop needing everyone else to be wrong.
She folded the letter.
Robert stood nearby.
“Did I become less annoying?”
Maya wiped her eyes.
“Marginally.”
“I’ll take it.”
They hugged.
Not the dramatic embrace strangers online might have wanted.
May you like
A quiet one.
Real.
