Hello Fellow Codenewbies 👋,

This article is inspired by @Chris Bongers' post, A letter to my future self 💌. I'm writing this post about my coding journey for my future self to celebrate my birthday this year 😄.

Dear Ayu,

You turned 41 this year! Cheers on that! 🍻

I wonder what do you do when you read this letter right now.
Have you become a successful and motivational web developer like you wanted to be? Do you work remotely to be there for the little one as you wished for? Do you still actively engage in communities like you always love to do? Or do you do something else?

I hope whatever you do right now is something that makes you proud and, most importantly, makes you happy! ❤
I also hope you still remember and appreciate all your hustles and wins (well, at least until this year because I can't tell about the future 😋), which gets you to where you are right now.

Or did you forget? Well, it can happen when you get much older 😆.

In that case, let me remind you while it's still fresh on my mind.

You were a self-taught developer who started learning to code when your daughter was 2.
You made time, one until two hours late at night, to learn after juggling with a very young kid and everything.
It was hard, but you pushed through.

When mom passed away, that was the hardest part of all.
She was your best friend and your biggest support in everything.
She was the only one who believed in you and your decision to learn to code, while many of them didn't.
You wanted to, but you didn't have time to mourn for so long until it paralyzed you.
You took almost six months' break from learning and only did your best to survive for the family. You thought you would give up.
But you didn't! You got back even stronger!

Fast forward a bit. It was the year 2020 when the pandemic hit. That was a challenging year, but also the year when you finally met and joined the Virtual Coffee community. I'm sure you still remember this one, how they all supported you in your journey.
They helped you to let out a better version of yourself. You started to write a blog and even contributed to open source for the first time!

You were also quite active in other communities such as Hashnode, CodeNewbie and DEV. And you have been active on Twitter since the beginning of your journey 😂.

We love bullet points, don't we? I highlight some of your wins. I want to remind you that all your hard work is fruitful! And you did all of these in less than one year!

• You started to write in November 2020. Some of your articles have made it onto CodeNewbie's newsletters since January 2021.
• You were one of CodeNewbie Writers of the Month — February 2021.
• You were on Hashnode Spotlight of The Week.
• One of your articles made it into the Top 7 on DEV.
• You were on CodeNewbie Community Spotlight — April 2021.
• One of your articles got featured and made into the Must Read Developer Articles on Hashnode.
• You were a guest in one episode of Virtual Coffee's podcast.

These are all beyond my expectation, beyond our past dream. I only know to do what I can, as best as possible. And I will continue to do that, for my future self, for you!

I hope you will smile when you're reading this, as I am right now while writing this 😊.

With Love,
Ayu from 2021

Thank you for reading!
Last, you can find me on Twitter. Let's connect! 😊