Good morning, dipshit.

I don’t know why I just called you that. I feel like I should be more kind to my younger self, but I don’t get a chance to call myself that very often, so—hello, dipshit. I wonder what you’d call me if you could respond to these messages. Hehe.

I want to talk about confidence for a second. If you think you’re confident now, wait until a year from now. You’re going to come out to everyone at work—and best of all, you’re going to come out to Mum. I’m not going to go through all the details of how it happens. It feels like a stack of dominos that all fall at once. It’s beautiful. And very anticlimactic. No drama, no fireworks. The day just keeps going like it always does. Mum loves us just for being us—maybe even more now. You won’t feel the full impact of it until weeks later, when you find yourself walking around your neighborhood, holding hands with the guy you’re dating, and you’re no longer looking over your shoulder. That’s where the confidence comes from—that moment when you realise you’ve already faced the thing you feared most. You’ve stood in your truth. And there’s nothing left to lose anymore.

Everyone at work? They’ll love you. You’ll realise that Michelin is a second home—a harbour, really. That’s what I call it now. A place you go to recharge. Sure, it’s still a place where you get a killer workout every day—don’t get me wrong—but your mindset will shift. Oh, and the people? Still wildly incompetent. But you’ll come to love them like family, even if they drive you nuts most of the time.

Right now, I’m taking singing lessons. That’s right. You’re actually doing it. You’re going to keep pursuing that little itch you’ve always had. You’ll start singing at work—first quietly, then way too loud. And you know what? No one’s going to care. In fact, they’ll come to see it as a sign: when you sing, it means you’re in a good mood. When you don’t sing, it means you’re stressed. That’s how well people will know you, Philip.

You sing because it’s how you express your feelings. And right now, you’re really into musicals. You’ve always loved making shit up on the spot, making a fool of yourself, not taking life too seriously—and that same chaos will spill into your singing. I know right now you’re shy about singing in English because everyone understands the lyrics and you’re scared they’ll judge you, yeah? But remember what I said about confidence? That wall—you’ll break through it faster than you think. You’re going to fall in love with the sound of your own voice. Even if it’s not technically perfect, it’ll be emotionally honest. And isn’t that what great storytelling is all about?

Oh—and here’s another thing. I’m bulking again. And this time, I think I’m finally doing it right. I’m 71kg now and I don’t have a belly. It’s been six months and I’ve gained 10kg, slow and steady. I’m aiming to gain another 15kg by the end of this year. I’m going to the gym six times a week, but only for 30 minutes each time. That’s it. I recently learned that’s just 2% of your entire day. Can you imagine that? Two percent—and it changes everything. We look great. We feel great too.

Chat soon xx

*** *** ***

Good evening, beautiful.

I guess I can send multiple messages a day now. Hehe.

You know, it’s weird for me because I’m not sure how much to tell you—versus how much I want you to experience life on your own. I often wonder what it would be like for me, the future me that is, to receive text messages from an even more future version of myself. To be honest, I think I’d be terrified. Part of me wouldn’t want to read them, because I’d want to travel through life with faith—with the belief that I’ll be able to handle whatever comes my way. But it’s tempting, isn’t it? To want to know what life has in store. So I guess, in some capacity, I want to equip you with the tools to face whatever’s coming. But we know each other very well. And you know I can’t help myself. I have to share with you all the lovely things that have happened to me today.

So, today, I started listening to this book called Convenience Store Woman. It’s about a Japanese woman who works at a convenience store. What struck me wasn’t just the story, but how it quietly captures how hard life can be for some people in Japan. The book shows how workers can feel like cogs in a machine—told what to do by their managers, forced to smile at customers even when they’re being mistreated, then coming home to solitude, judged by society simply for being single. And yet, there’s a quiet resilience in the main character. She navigates a difficult life in her own way. The book’s short—just over three hours—and I’m already halfway through. It made me feel lucky, really lucky. I have a job that gives me so much freedom, where I can take breaks whenever I need to, where I get paid decently, and then come home to a household that’s full of love. Not everyone has that. Not everyone is as lucky as we are.

Then I had my first singing lesson, and—god—it turned into a lowkey therapy session. I learned that singing isn’t just technique. It’s part technique, part feeling, and part belief. Would you look at that? I realised a big part of my singing hang-up is being a perfectionist. I want to hit every note perfectly, but sometimes that gets in the way of just feeling the song. There’s a lot to work on, but I’m excited. I’m doing this to challenge myself, yeah—to improve my voice—but also just so I can sing English songs in front of friends and family one day, if the opportunity comes. I think that would be lovely. I don’t know if I’ll ever perform in front of judges. Maybe I will—just for fun, or as a confidence boost. But mostly, I just want to keep learning new things. I want to make a fool of myself, to embarrass myself, to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Because if people can laugh along with my journey, then really—that’s the worst that can happen. And if that’s the worst, then it can’t get any worse than that, right?

Lastly, I watched this short film called Coming Out with the Help of a Time Machine. It’s about an Indian man who comes out to his parents. They’re furious. They nearly disown him. It’s such a common struggle for so many gay men. His parents say they gave him everything, and this was how he repaid them. But beneath all that was fear—fear that the world would judge them. The story wasn’t really about him. It was about their shame. And all he wanted was their love. Thankfully, it has a happy ending. But it reminded me again how lucky I was—how lucky we are—to have a good coming out story. To have a very cool mum. Not everyone gets that.

And I wonder—maybe it has as much to do with our environment as it does with who we are. Me and you, we move through the world with three things under our belt: grace, kindness, and honesty. We touch people in ways that change them. And maybe—just maybe—that’s why people meet us differently. Maybe that’s why coming out landed softly. Maybe that’s why love has returned to us in ways we couldn’t have planned. Don’t forget those three things, yeah? Especially grace. It will come back to you tenfold. I believe that. I really, truly do.

Chat soon xx