A letter to future self is simple to start and strange to open. You write it today, pick a date, and it stays locked until then. Below: what to put in, five examples at different ages, how long to wait, and how this compares with email to future self sites.
Each one opens a blank letter with the moment already on the envelope. No account needed.
Hey 18,
I am 15 and I am writing this in math class, so if it is messy, that is why.
I bet you still like the same music. I bet you are embarrassed about something I did last week, which is a lot. Did Jess and I stay friends? Did you get the braces off? Do you still hate tomatoes?
Please do not be too hard on me. I am doing okay for someone with no idea what I am doing.
Also, did you ever learn to drive?
Five things fill a good one:
Write it the way you talk. Your future self will not judge your spelling.
We wrote these to show what a letter like this can sound like. Borrow a line, then make it yours: the small, true details are what make it land.
Dear me in a year,
I graduated yesterday and I have no job and eleven dollars in my account. My mom keeps saying it will work out. I keep saying thank you and not believing her.
So I want to check her math. Did it work out? Where do you live? Is the roommate situation still bad? Did you learn something nobody taught you in school?
If it is still messy, remember I wrote this on the messy day. It was always going to start messy.
Hi,
I am on the bathroom floor, the only quiet room, writing this with a toddler pounding on the door. It is hard right now. I love her more than I knew a person could, and I miss sleeping.
Does it get easier? Do you still remember the smell of her head? Write down what I forgot: the way she says 'bye-bye, house'. I do not want to lose that.
Be patient with this version of you. I am tired and I am trying.
To the me a year from now,
I moved into a one-bedroom last week. It is quiet and the heater clicks. I have two forks and a lamp.
I did not plan this. Nobody does. A year ago I had another address and another life, and I am not going to pretend I am okay yet.
But I am here, I am eating real dinners, and I painted one wall yellow. Is it still yellow? Have you made a friend in the building? I hope you are being gentler with yourself. Start again slowly.
Dear sixty,
Five years ago I started walking every morning, and I wanted to see if you kept it up. I have not missed a week yet. If you have, no worries.
Predictions: the garden will be bigger. You will have learned to say no to your sister's Christmas plans. You will still dislike olives.
Here is what I most want you to remember. You started late, and you started anyway.
Six months is enough to feel a difference. One year is the easiest to picture, and you will have lived through a full run of seasons and birthdays. Five years starts to feel like a message from a stranger who happens to be you. Ten years suits a big life change, like a first job or a first baby.
The longer you wait, the more you should explain. Name the people, the street, the job. You will not remember who the new guy at work was.
For anything that waits more than a year or two, download your own copy as a backup. You can unseal and edit the letter any time before it is opened.
Plenty of sites let you send an email to future self. You type a message, give an address and a date, and it lands in your inbox that day. That is a fine way to do it. A letter that arrives in your inbox needs nothing from you but a click, and for a few months it works well.
It helps to ask a few questions of any of them. Do they ask you to sign up? Do your words travel inside the email? And what happens if the address stops working years from now?
Here the letter stays locked on the page until your date. You write it free, with no account. An email is optional: leave one and we tell you when it unlocks. The email never contains the words.
Pick one of five wax seal colors (Letterbox red, Ink blue, Fern, Ochre or Plum) and one of three handwriting styles (Everyday, Neat or Round). Add one song as a link that opens with the letter. A song is a fast way back into a season.
Open When never writes it for you. Prompts help you start, and a new one arrives every Monday, but the words are yours. If you want a place to begin, try the letter to yourself page or a few lines from the list below.
Open When never writes your letter for you. These are only here to get the first line down.