Dear 28,

As a twenty-eight-year-old, I didn’t know whether fifty was going to exist for me or not. I thought I might get to see twenty-nine, but even then I wasn’t certain. In essence it wasn’t that I didn’t think that I wouldn’t die, more that I couldn’t imagine NOT being around for another year. If that makes any sense (double negative madness). And it was that little bit of uncertainty that gave me fuel to make sure that my motor did more than just tick along.

I am glad this letter won’t actually reach you, because I don’t really want to tinker with that motor. It’s a big reason that I am still here.

Besides, going back to the future is so eighties!

When I was you, I had to keep reminding myself that ‘future’ wasn’t a dirty word. That thirty, thirty-five, forty-five or even fifty might be a realistic proposition. Not a dream, or a fairy tale. And that ‘now’ was the greatest word of the lot. My ‘now’ was twenty-two years ago. And now. Twenty-two years feels like a lifetime ago. And yesterday. I always told myself then to trust in my instinct. I wasn’t totally sure that was true back then. Now I’m sure. How do I know I’m sure? Easy. Instinct!

Why am I writing to you in this slightly self-conscious way?

I have an instinct that reconnecting to my twenty-eight-year-old self will be really useful to the fifty-year-old me. I haven’t quite worked out why yet. Or even how. I may discover it along the way. I guess a big part of me is wondering if I have turned out the way you might have imagined I might.

Was all that fight worthwhile?

I think the reason it took twenty-two years to write this book, and indeed to properly communicate with you, was that I was always scared that the answer to that question might actually be NO.

That I wasn’t worth fighting for.

That I might be a disappointment to twenty-eight-year-old me.

That nothing was gained by my survival.

And I guess the reason that I have faced this now is that it has taken me twenty-two years to come to a still slightly hesitant, positive response to that question.

As a twenty-eight-year-old, you burnt inside with the need to ask for help but you had too much pride to admit to the world that you needed that help. For the next few years, despite surviving a life-threatening illness, things didn’t really change. However desperate you might have been to reach out to someone, your own contrary antagonism forbade it. And that was so boring and painful for everyone. Especially you.

I am now an ancient man of fifty and thankfully, finally, the walls of belligerence might be starting to crumble and an antidote to the fierceness might be in sight. I see a life worth living and a life worth being saved for. I see a perspective worth writing about. Life IS weird and perspective is our biggest crutch. We forget so quickly and then feel guilty for forgetting. We shouldn’t feel guilty. We should just keep re-remembering.

Twenty-eight, if you could read this, the biggest thing I would want to say to you is this:

Along the path of the next twenty years, take pause to breathe and try to accept help when offered. And even when you can’t, which is most of the time I suspect, be gracious in your refusal.

I need you to know that I have thought of you every day for the last two decades. You have made me what I am becoming today and I will always be grateful for that.

I owe my life to you.

Yours always.

50