Some stories don’t need an audience. Some goodbyes don’t need to be spoken. And some letters, the ones that write themselves in my head on quiet nights, whispered through thoughts and dreams, are meant only to remind me how deeply I’ve lived.
These are mine. Letters I’ll never send! To the people, places, and moments that shaped me; to the corners of the world that taught me what home can mean.
Dear Warren, Ohio,
I may have started life in Fort Meade, Maryland, but you were the beginning. The backdrop of a small town with the sound of trains that made me dream of elsewhere.
You raised me knowing to go home when the streetlights came on. You gave me an education which made me curious, with a longing to wander, and a family whose love traveled with me long after I boarded my first plane. Even now, no matter how far I go, your streetlights glow in my memory. AND one day, I will come home.
Dear Mom and Dad,
You named me Wendy. A name borrowed from imagination and given to a girl who would one day learn to fly.
You filled my world with books, maps, and National Geographic magazines that made the globe feel both infinite and reachable. You were my first teachers: parents, providers of wisdom, and permissive provocateurs who never clipped my wings, even when you worried where they might take me. Thank you for the gift of curiosity. It became the passport to everything I’ve ever loved.
Dear Mark,
You’ve always been my biggest cheerleader and my best friend.
From the start, you believed in every wild idea I chased, even when it meant watching me disappear across oceans. You reminded me where I came from, kept the laughter alive in the spaces between our worlds, and never let distance dull our bond. No matter how far I roam, knowing you’re in my corner makes every place feel a little more like home.
Dear Tom,
You were the love that taught me how deep connection can go and how fragile timing can be.
We dreamed together once, of places and possibilities, and though the road eventually led me away, part of me was always tracing those dreams we never took. You were both anchor and catalyst. The ache that became my compass. I’ve carried you quietly across continents, tucked between journal pages and border stamps. Maybe love doesn’t have to last to leave a mark. Maybe it just has to open a door.
Dear Paris,
You were my first dream, my leap across the pond, and my first step into the unknown.
You taught me how to take care of myself when everything felt foreign. I arrived with a suitcase and an open mind, and left with stories and a desire to share my Paris with anyone who would listen or travel with me. You showed me beauty, history, the thrill of discovery and somehow, I fall more in love with you each time I return.
Dear Julie,
You were the girl behind the counter at the corner café in Montmartre. The one who always remembered how I liked my coffee in the morning and poured my wine the moment you spotted me walking down the street toward Café Chappe at night. You always had a dining recommendation, and it was always the right choice.
Between my tiny cups of espresso and glasses of rosé, we shared our dreams. Yours was Bali.
I still remember the sparkle in your eyes when you made me promise that if you ever made it there, I would visit. And I did. You kept your promise to yourself, and I found my way to Bali. Then, because of the family I met there during my visit to you, I found my way back again.
Dear China,
You were my test and my teacher and sometimes, you were tough. I laughed. I cried. I stumbled through tones and translations, but learned that kindness doesn’t need a dictionary. I was frustrated at times and decided you were the place I loved to hate, yet hated to love.
From shared taxis to last-minute dinners I couldn’t refuse because someone would “lose face,” to students and friends who became like family. You taught me that humanity has its own universal accent. I still carry your chaos. And, dear Xiashan, I will always consider you my home in the Middle Kingdom.
And because I can’t choose one, to all the Alinas, Alices, Rabbies, Peters, Pauls, and all the Chinese names I can’t remember, you made me fall in love with your country, your culture, and your people. You turned six months into four years and gave me an inside look at a nation that, until recently, had only begun to open its doors to foreigners.
You gave me a language written in characters instead of letters, words and numbers I still recall today, a love of real Chinese food, and a lifelong appreciation for your history. And though personal space was never your strong suit, you filled every inch of my life with color, laughter, and unforgettable stories. I am forever grateful for the time I spent with all of you.
Dear Bali,
You were the soft landing after the chaos of China.
You wrapped me in sunlight, incense, love, and sea salt. You reminded me that healing can be found in water, laughter, family, prayer, meditation, and the mystical ways of the Balian, Cok Rai, the healer who felt what I couldn’t explain. In your temples and in your hearts, I learned how to breathe again…deeply, gratefully, without hurry.
I discovered the joy of simple things: the sound of wind chimes over rice fields, the gamelan at the temple, the call of the gecko, and the sweet scent of frangipani that will never leave me.
Dear Ketut, Koming, Kirana, and Kiera,
You were truly my Balinese family. I fell in love with you on my first visit to Peliatan, near Ubud. You welcomed me as if I had always belonged. You invited me into your home, your rituals, your laughter, your lives.
You included me in daily offerings and temple ceremonies, took me to a Balinese wedding, and before I left, invited me back to participate in Ketut’s mother’s Ngaben, the sacred cremation ceremony. I returned, and you welcomed me not as a guest but as family.
When I left again, I knew I would return, not for days or weeks, but for months. During that time, I learned so much about Balinese culture, but more than anything, you taught me the meaning of belonging.
When I finally had to leave for the U.S., you made me promise to come back. I planned to return in May 2020, but the world stopped turning, and I couldn’t get there. You even planned a surprise for me at the airport: the new addition to your family, little Kinara.
You will always be Bali to me.
Dear Poland,
I arrived just before the world stopped turning. You became my shelter in uncertain times. I was grateful to spend the pandemic within your borders. I went from face-to-face English lessons to online sessions and found unexpected connection through a screen.
I lived in the heart of your capital, where a never-ending rotation of international flatmates kept life interesting, and human, during a time when the world felt paused. Through those encounters, I built deep friendships that carried me through the quiet months.
More than anything, you gave me a new respect for your country and your people. For the way you endured, rebuilt, and kept moving forward no matter how heavy the history or how long the winter.
Poland, thank you for showing me the meaning of resilience.
Dear Valeria, Zeka, Anu, Anil, Tarlan, and Klara,
In the revolving door of flatmates, you are the ones who stayed nearest and dearest. I can’t imagine my life in Warsaw without you in it.
Valeria, the broken tub bonded our friendship as tightly as the repair job on the hole you made.
Anu and Anil, celebrating Nepalese holidays with you and your friends brought such light into the long winters, and I’ll never forget the joy I felt when your son was born.
Zeka, Tarlan, and Klara, what can I say? We had some mad Friday nights. Cocktails, Frank Sinatra and Elvis on the turntable, friends over for those ridiculous games, like Cards Against Humanity, laughter echoing through the flat long after the music stopped and you headed to the club and I headed to bed.
I probably wouldn’t have stayed nearly five years if it hadn’t been for all of you.
Dear Bulgaria,
Your chapter started more than twenty years ago, when four teenagers from Gabrovo came to Warren, Ohio. No matter how often you say, I’ll come see you someday, it rarely happens when decades and oceans lie between.
When I was living in Poland, I received an offer to teach English at Zenira Camp on the Black Sea. It was an unexpected door to my past and a chance to fulfill a long-kept promise to visit those four young people from Bulgaria.
Not only did you reunite me with the teenagers who were now in their thirties by the time I made the trip, but you also gave me a new cast of characters through Zenira Camp and four unforgettable summers on the Black Sea.
You gave me the gift of return and reminded me that some stories really do come full circle.
Dear Hristian, Tony, Pako (Pavel), and Yani,
Our chapter began more than twenty years ago in Warren, Ohio, when I met four teenagers from Gabrovo, Bulgaria, who stole my heart.
Pako, having you live with me and Tom may have been a precursor to why I’m so drawn to homestays. It’s the best way to immerse yourself in a culture.
Hristian, you always made me laugh and still do to this day.
Tony and Yani, so young, sweet, and innocent back then, and now married with children of your own.
I can’t tell you how much it meant to reconnect with all of you after more than two decades. To see you again in your home country (even though two of you no longer live there), to meet your families, and to have you share your Bulgaria with me.
Seeing you all again was proof that time may pass, but love and laughter never fade.
Dear Tanzania,
You were another dream come true. You were my reminder of wonder.
As a little girl, I didn’t dream of sugarplums; I dreamed of epic sunsets behind massive acacia trees while giraffes and zebras wandered the plains. From your rock-strewn earth to your wide-open sky, you gave me awe. The endless stretch of the Serengeti left me breathless. I saw lions asleep beneath acacia trees, the great migration of wildebeest, and a horizon that felt infinite.
I remember the laughter of my small students who found joy in everything, the rhythm and vivid color of the Maasai market, and the sunsets that made time disappear. You reminded me that joy lives in the simple things and that gratitude can be spoken with a smile alone.
Dear Bright English Medium School,
I lived with you at the school. It was a forty-minute walk from the nearest town, if you could even call it that. I sometimes felt guilty eating my chapati, pasta, meat stew, and fresh fruit while you ate porridge for breakfast and rice and beans for lunch and dinner every single day. But I learned that gratitude is often served through food, and I have never met a more thankful group of children.
You were grateful for every moment we spent together. Whether it was chasing a battered water jug across the dusty field and kicking it into a lone soccer goal, or singing songs while keeping rhythm on an overturned pail. We didn’t always have electricity. I took bucket showers with water heated over a wood fire and washed my clothes by hand, hanging them to dry in the Tanzanian sun.
Thank you for showing me so much love, for reminding me that joy doesn’t come from having much, but from cherishing what you have. You gave me one of the most heartwarming experiences of my life and a forever home in my heart.
Dear Morocco,
Our story isn’t over yet. You were never part of my long-term plan, but somehow you became home.
I came for what I thought would be three months, a brief stay, a new adventure. Then I arrived in Kelaa, still recovering from an ear infection, and somehow you wouldn’t let me go. I stayed. I taught. And when another injury and uncertainty found me again, you turned healing into belonging.
I’ll never forget the stillness and silence of the Sahara or the nights in Kelaa when the call to prayer floated through the air and I realized I was exactly where I was meant to be.
Like I said, our story isn’t over yet. But when this chapter does end, know that it was one of the most unexpected and beautiful of them all. A reminder that sometimes the places we never planned to go become the ones that affect us most.
Dear People of Morocco,
Because this chapter isn’t over yet, I’ll save my unsent letter for another time. But if I were to write them now, there would be too many to count.
I could fill pages with stories of shared coffee and tea, of strangers who showed kindness before they knew my name. I could write to the shopkeepers, the desert nomads, the children who shouted greetings while they kicked their soccer ball, and the friends who refused to let me leave until I ate more.
There are so many people, places, and moments that deserve their own letter, enough, perhaps, for a book all their own. For now, I’ll just say thank you for your warmth, your patience, and your endless capacity to make a foreigner feel at home.
PS: And so, for now, I’ll leave this last letter unwritten…
Some letters aren’t meant to arrive. They just need to be written. And with this one unfinished, I don’t know where the next postcard from the edge will come from, or who will become my next Dear So-and-So. But I can feel Kenya calling. It will be another story waiting, another letter unwritten. There are so many people, not only from the road but from home, to whom I could write a thousand letters, but know this: every one of them is already written on my heart. Maybe that’s how I dream by writing letters never sent, to people, places, and moments that made my life a living map of love.
Down the Rabbit Hole 