Letters from the Future: A Journey Back to Myself

This isn’t a typical book. It’s a reckoning. A reunion. A ridiculously honest walk back through the last 33 years of living with Young Onset Parkinson’s—and the conversation I wish I could have had with myself when it all began.

Letters from the Future is a companion to my original book, Shaky Times—but this time, I’m not just telling the story. I’m revisiting it. Reflecting on it. And writing back to that younger version of me who was scared, stubborn, and convinced he had to survive it all alone.

Every chapter includes a 2025 reflection—what I see now that I couldn’t see then—and a letter I’d send back to the man I used to be.

I’m slowly releasing the entire book one story at a time on my newsletter at VoiceUnshaken.com/subscribe.

No paywall. No fluff. Just truth—dripped out daily for anyone who needs a little reminder that they’re not alone.

Prefer to read the whole thing in one sitting and underline the hell out of it?
You can also buy the full book now on Amazon.

Either way, it’s yours.

This is me—shaky, stubborn, still standing—telling the story I once didn’t think I’d live long enough to finish.

Let’s go back. So we can move forward.

Still showing up,

Richie

2025

Ok lets get started……

Letters I’d Like to Send Back to Myself
A Companion to “Shaky Times” — Reflections & Letters, 2025

Dear Reader,
Fourteen years ago, I closed the final chapter of Shaky Times—not because my story was over, but because I was too deep in the storm to see what came next.

I thought I was done writing.

But Parkinson’s had other plans. Life had other plans. And so did I.

Now, after more than three decades living with this disease, I’ve come back to those original pages—chapter by chapter, fall by fall, small victories and devastating losses—and I’ve added what I couldn’t back then:

Perspective. And peace. And sometimes, punchlines.

What follows is a series of reflections and letters that serve as time capsules, not just for the younger version of me who first wrote these chapters, but for anyone out there who feels like they’re drowning in their own diagnosis.

These aren’t rewrites.

They’re reunions.

Each 2025 reflection is me talking to my younger self—the kid who was scared, stubborn, and trying to figure out how to live while everything was changing beneath him.
Each letter to the reader is me talking to you—with the honesty I once couldn’t bear to say out loud, and the compassion I wish I had when I needed it most.
Together, these pieces form something new—something I didn’t know I was creating at the time:
A roadmap for surviving with soul intact.
A living record of a life that kept going, even when I didn’t think it could.
A love letter to resilience. And to you.
Why include these 14 years later?
Because when I wrote Shaky Times, I was still becoming the man who could finish it.
Now, I finally am.
So here they are—my letters to the past, and my lifelines to the future.
Read them if you need to remember how far we’ve come.
Hold them if you forget who you are.
Laugh at them when the shaking gets loud.
And if nothing else—let them remind you: You’re not alone.
With all my heart,
Richie
2025
 
Chapter 1
THE LABYRINTH TO THE DIAGNOSIS
2025 Reflection:

I can barely get through this chapter without tearing up. Not just because of the falls or the pain or the refrigerator dent my skull left—but because I remember what it felt like to not know what was happening to me. To wake up every day in a body that was slowly betraying me, and to convince myself it was just… a foot problem.

I didn’t want to believe it could be something bigger. Because if it was, it meant my life—the one I had planned, the one I was building—might never be the same. And I wasn’t ready for that truth.

But what breaks my heart most when I look back isn’t the denial. It’s the silence. The way I tried to carry it alone. The way I smiled through gritted teeth while my body was breaking down behind the scenes.

If I could go back to that version of me—the scared, stiff, stumbling 24-year-old—I’d sit beside him on the edge of that hospital bed, take his shaking hand in mine, and say:
“You’re not weak for being afraid. You’re not less of a man because you’re falling. You are walking through fire, and one day, you’ll help other people find their way through it too.”
Because the truth is, the world wasn’t ending. It was just beginning again—on shakier ground, maybe, but still yours to stand on.

Letter #1:

 "The Labyrinth Begins: A Walk Through the Unknown"

Dear Reader,
If this first chapter felt like stumbling through darkness—you felt it exactly right.
I didn’t write this chapter from hindsight. I wrote it from the inside—when I was still falling, still searching, still trying to pretend it was just my feet.

What you just read wasn’t a story with a lesson. It was confusion in real time. A slow, silent undoing. I was 24 and terrified—and I didn’t have the language, the answers, or the courage to admit it yet.

If you’re in that space right now—if your body is doing things you can’t explain, if your mind is trying to stay calm while everything else starts to crumble—I want you to know something:

You are not imagining it. You are not weak. You are not alone.

You’re doing the best you can with the information you have. Just like I was.

And one day—maybe sooner than you think—you’ll look back on this confusing chapter not as the end, but as the beginning of your resilience.

So keep walking, even if it’s slow. Even if it’s shaky. Even if you’re not sure where it’s going yet.

You’re not broken. You’re just entering the labyrinth.

And you will find your way out.

With you already,

Richie