The letters that changed my life

Corresponding with friends, loved ones and the universe.

Ponte de Luis bridge in Porto.

I stood alone at the peak of the Ponte de Luis bridge in Porto, my broken wrist throbbing in dull pain as it rested in my makeshift sling. Below, the soft hum of a Portuguese late dinner serenade rose to mix with the cold wind enveloping me. The waxing moon peeked through the dark clouds. A five-cent coin clutched in my left hand—the functioning one.

A month ago, life gave me two challenges in the form of a broken wrist through a car accident in South Africa while traveling solo and a broken heart. I did not know which hurt more. 

I flew to the UK to recover at my Godsister’s house. There were meals I didn’t have to make and a home I didn’t have to leave. It wasn’t just the way she cleaned my wounds, though that might have been enough; it was something quieter—a kind of unspoken permission to simply be, to be cared for without the need to ask or offer anything in return.

During this time, we went to Porto for a short holiday, coinciding with my 30th birthday. Turning the Big 3-0 felt like a turning point where soul searching shifted from a quest to a quiet resignation—an acceptance that the map of self is no longer expanding but requires closer introspection.

In that state, I reached out to some of the significant people in my life for their gift of words. I asked them to tell me who I was to them in hopes of finding the words that had been temporarily shrouded in clouds of self-doubt.

I didn’t know then that what I was doing was similar to what

Adam Grant

talked about in the podcast with Maya Shankar, though mine was less about unlocking potential and more about reminding me of the best version of myself.

The heartfelt replies arrived—from friends from diaper days to teenage years, mentors, and unlikely friends from myriad life phases. Somewhere in those words, the clouds parted, and a pattern emerged, though I couldn’t say what it was at the time. They showed a path toward something resembling clarity—if not of purpose, then of my deepest desires. 

There were three futures I could see for myself: a family, financial freedom, and a book. It was clear early on that I could only have one. A family would unravel the plans for financial independence, and writing—well, writing was rarely a path to anything but itself. So, I set out to try to achieve at least one. 

A decade later, I sat by a canal in Freiburg, the gentle trickle of water mingling with the soft hum of the city. Across from me, the love of my life—my husband—smiled as the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee rose to meet us. We were having an impromptu birthday breakfast in our neighborhood cafe while our children were in daycare. 

Never in a million years would the broken-wrist-broken-hearted me on the Porto bridge imagine the mother-wife-aspiring-writer me in the Freiburg cafe.

There’s a saying that the days are short, but the years are long. If our daily actions are like steering a ship, then our yearly plans are the course we set, and our long-term vision—whether for the next decade or for life itself—is the compass guiding us forward.

And those precious words I received became the wind in my sail. I have traveled far and wide in the past decade and am grateful. How can I give it back to the universe? How can I pass on this beautiful positive energy?

While listening to the said podcast, one thing Adam Grant said inspired me—he inverted the exercise above and wrote unsolicited letters to his friends telling them when they are at their best. 

I was like, “That’s it!” I want to write back to all those friends and loved ones who took the time to give me their words. I want to reciprocate by extending my hands to lift them even higher than where they are now. 

In my letters, I tell them who they were at their best, how they made me feel, and how much I appreciated them. My aim is not only to celebrate our friendship but also to celebrate them—their person, their being—for being who they are and for being in this world, and to my incredible fortune, to be at the same time and some point also at the same place with me. 

Isn't life in the end about the people in our lives? Isn’t it about the connections we have made, kept or not? Every connection creates a ripple in the sea of life. Every ripple crosses the very fabric of time and space. 

Looking back to the day I stood on the Porto bridge alone, summoning the last of my positivity in life, my heart goes out to this past me. If only she had known what lay ahead, she would have found solace in it. 

But we will never know, do we? We will never know how our lives will unfold or where the path of life will take us. One thing I know for sure is that anything is possible. We just need to calibrate our compass, start steering, and be ready to sail when the waves of opportunity arrive. 

I threw the 5-cent coin down into the Duoro River, sealing the pact with myself and sending it as a wish to the universe. A year later, the universe answered, and I rode the wave at full speed—with two functioning hands.