Dear PiePie,
When you get the link to this site, this letter is what you should read first. It’s a little about why I embarked on this.
I wanted to write a series of short letters to you so that when you are an adult yourself, and are reaching the same life stages that I am currently, perhaps the path that your mom and I have walked will provide some illumination to you. I also hoped these letters provide another window into who we are, beyond your experience of us being your parents.
I realised, as a child myself, we don’t really know our parents because it’s usually difficult to have that heart-to-heart talk, whether through a lack of opportunity or simply because those emotions or thoughts are lost to the passage of time. Who remembers their feelings from 18 years ago? As much as modern technology (which by the time you see this might be antiquity) allows us to capture photos and videos of moments lived, writing captures a snapshot of the soul: who we are at a certain point in time, having a certain set of values, thinking certain types of thoughts.
Through these letters, I hope to pen down my thoughts on different topics like happiness or work (alternatively named “Daddy decided to nag at me through letters”), to share a little of what I enjoy, and to reflect on moments with you. When you’re still young, you probably won’t remember those moments, so these may help to fill in the gaps of consciousness. But as you grow older, you will increasingly have your own memories of those moments, and it may be interesting to eventually see those moments from another lens.
I say this is for you, but selfishly, it is for me too. In writing to you, I want to peel back the layers for me to understand myself as well. And I hope to continue this consistently – one letter a week for 17 years, totalling almost 900 letters. Future only knows whether this came to fruition, and I hope I persevered. Since these are open letters, others may be reading it. But know that these were written with you, and only you, in mind. If you are the only person that read this, that would be enough.
Love, Dad