I was named Wendy long before I understood what that meant. In Peter Pan, Wendy isn’t the hero or the one who flies the fastest. She is the keeper of stories. She is the one who tends wounds, feeds hungry boys, and reminds them who they are when the world has forgotten. I didn’t think much about that role until I began traveling and, over the years, realized I had gathered my own collection of Lost Boys. Men – no, really, boys – drifting between places, pasts, and possibilities, who found their way to me not to be saved, but to be seen. And yet, sometimes, they were the ones saving me.
Without children of my own, my friends, especially Cathy, like to tease me about my “collection” of “Lost Boys”. I never meant to collect them; they simply keep finding me. Neverland, for me, isn’t a place on a map. It’s a moment when someone is no longer who they were, but not yet who they will become. In the years I’ve spent traveling, I’ve learned that I am often that moment for others. A pseudo-mom. A listener. A khalti (auntie). A Wendy, holding space for Lost Boys until they are ready to fly on their own. Neverland it seems, keeps stamping my passport.
My first Lost Boy arrived in the form of Adrian, an eighteen-year-old from Germany on a gap year. He was tall, dark, handsome, and the female Chinese teachers swooned accordingly. Jessica, also eighteen, from Australia, completed our small, makeshift family. The three of us lived together and taught at Weifang–Xiashan Bilingual School, in a rural village so small it didn’t even appear on most maps.
Adrian dreamed of flying…literally. He loved airplanes, talked about them endlessly, and had his sights set on becoming a pilot, preferably at the controls of a Dreamliner. Once we settled into our three-bedroom flat, roles emerged naturally: if we ate at home, I cooked, and Jessica and Adrian cleaned up. They were both devoted Harry Potter fans; I knew nothing of the books or the films. They convinced me to read the series, in order, and when I finished each book, we would watch the corresponding movie together. It became a ritual.
The weeks passed quickly. We went to school, came home, shared meals, laughed and talked late into the evenings. We celebrated Christmas together as a small family, inviting our Chinese coworkers to join us. And then, almost without warning, the semester ended and it was time to part ways.
Jessica left first, traveling before returning to Australia. Adrian and I had grown close. He knew about my love of travel, and I knew his love of airplanes. As those final days wound down, we promised we would see each other again, somewhere, sometime. After we said goodbye, I sent him photos of airplane engines whenever I traveled, especially Dreamliners. He always replied, identifying the aircraft with enthusiasm and precision.
True to his word, the following year Adrian returned to China and found me again, this time in my new city of Qingdao. We even made the journey back to Xiashan together, for old times’ sake. When we said goodbye the second time, our lives pulled us in different directions, and over time we mostly lost touch.
In the summer of 2025, I saw on Instagram that Adrian had gotten married. I don’t know if he ever became a pilot. I congratulated him on his nuptials and wished him well. He thanked me, said he hoped I was doing well too, and added that if I was ever in Germany, I should look him up.
Adrian was my first Lost Boy, though I didn’t know it then. He didn’t need direction or saving. He only needed a place to pause, to be eighteen and uncertain, to talk about airplanes and dreams out loud. For a brief season, our shared life in Xiashan became his pause. I became what I seem to be again and again without trying: the one who listened, who fed the household, who held the story together. That, I’ve learned, is what being a Wendy often looks like in real life…holding the moment until someone is ready to move on.
Adrian was the first, but I soon realized he wouldn’t be the only one. Traveling as I do, even at my age, I often find myself among much younger people. Life on the road has a way of repeating itself, not in places but in moments. I am frequently drawn into conversations that stretch late into the night. Lost boys, and sometimes even girls, don’t always need answers. Some stories require more silence than words. They simply need to be heard.
The next person to enter my life was truly lost. Some people wander because they love movement; others wander because standing still feels impossible. This was true of them. Long before landing in Qingdao and before finding me, they had wandered extensively, searching not only for identity but for a place where that identity could exist without explanation, a place where they could feel at ease in their own skin.
We met in Qingdao, and the connection was immediate. They became my closest companion there, not through grand confession, but through an easy understanding and shared time. Friendship came quickly, rooted in presence rather than answers, and in the knowledge that not all searching needs to be spoken aloud.
My best friend and confidant in Qingdao was also my partner in crime. We taught at the same kindergarten, and from the beginning we were inseparable. There were more than a few wild days, including the time we rebelled against management, cut school, and spent the day playing Exploding Kittens and drinking coffee at a local café…only to cap it off with pizza and martinis. It felt necessary. It felt earned.
The kindergarten itself was extravagant, even by American standards. One child arrived each morning in a Bentley with a chauffeur; another was dropped off in a bright yellow McLaren. My bestie and I spent our days together at school and many evenings out as well. We clicked instantly. Laughing easily, crying occasionally, and holding each other through both.
When the principal suffered a heart attack, his wife, who had been planning a Thanksgiving meal for the school and families, was suddenly unable to follow through. Without hesitation, we stepped in. With a little help from Baileys in our morning coffee, we somehow pulled off a full Thanksgiving dinner for the entire community. It remains one of my favorite examples of who we were together: capable, chaotic, and deeply caring.
I left Qingdao at the end of February 2017 for yet another teaching post, this time in Dong’e, still within Shandong Province. They stayed on, but distance didn’t loosen the bond. That autumn, they traveled with another teacher and her spouse to Dong’e, where we celebrated Thanksgiving again, but this time in my home.
Life carried us onward. They moved to Norway; I moved to Poland. Contact became sporadic, as it often does. Then, at the end of 2020, I found a cheap ticket and planned to spend New Year’s in Norway with them. COVID had other ideas, and the trip was canceled. We drifted again.
In 2024, a message appeared out of the blue, asking for advice on buying gin. They remembered my love for the juniper spirit and wanted a recommendation for a friend. We caught up over the phone and by video, filling in years with laughter and recounting stories.
Now we exchange the occasional message, a comment here, a like there. But this one, once so lost, has found not only their shadow, but a place to call home, a place where they can finally be themselves. And that, perhaps, is the happiest ending any Wendy could hope for.
Not everyone who found their way into my life was lost. Some were simply standing at the beginning, looking for direction rather than refuge. Jack was one of those. I met him through Phoenix, the son of my teaching assistant, when I began tutoring in my home in Dong’e. Jack was a Chinese high school student with one clear goal: to master his English and use it as a bridge to the wider world.
Jack reminded me that being a Wendy doesn’t always mean holding space for uncertainty. Sometimes it means setting a table, opening a door, and letting learning happen naturally. Jack often brought classmates with him, or asked me to meet them for bowls of Lanzhou lamian, my favorite hand-pulled noodles. Around those tables, English flowed more easily, confidence grew, and boys who might never have spoken up began to find their voices. I wasn’t rescuing anyone. I was simply creating a place where effort was welcomed and curiosity rewarded, and, once again, that seemed to be enough.
After writing about Jack, I went looking for him in my inbox and found two emails we had exchanged in April 2021, almost two years after I had last seen him.
He told me he had begun studying Albanian, alongside continuing his English, and that he had participated in a UN project. I wrote back, sharing a bit about my life in Poland, answering his questions, and offering the advice he had asked for. We exchanged a few more notes over the next couple of weeks. He mentioned he hoped to study in Albania once Covid restrictions eased. And then, as sometimes happens, the correspondence faded.
Because Jack is part of this story, I decided to reach out again. After more than three weeks with no reply, I assumed the blog would move forward without an update. Then, unexpectedly, his name appeared in my inbox.
He apologized for the delay. He had been preparing for finals. He updated me on his family and on Phoenix’s son, Kevin. But what mattered most was this: he did go to Albania in 2022, spending a year there. During that time he also traveled to France, Italy, and Egypt. He is currently in Greece completing a second master’s degree in Southeastern European Studies. In July he will return to China and plans to pursue a PhD in Region and Country Studies, focusing on migration, security, nationalism, and international relations. He hopes to become a university lecturer in the field.
He ended his message by telling me I had been an impactful person in his life, that he admires my lifestyle and had learned certain attitudes from the way I move through the world. I can’t quite explain what that felt like to read.
We’ve exchanged a few brief notes since…mostly Chinese New Year wishes. I suspect our correspondence will again become infrequent. But it was good to hear from a lost boy who is clearly finding his direction and perhaps preparing to leave his own mark on the world.
Being an accidental Wendy means you don’t keep the boys. You just witness their becoming, and then you watch them grow wings.
China, it turns out, was not the exception. It was the beginning. I thought Jack and the others were a moment in time. That they were a place-specific chapter tied to red lanterns and train platforms.
But somewhere between Bali’s humidity, Poland’s revolving-door of flatmates (plus a few spares), and a Moroccan salon lined with tea glasses and Said’s steady presence, I began to see the pattern. The “Lost Boys” were never about geography. They were about energy. And somehow, that energy seems to follow me.
If China was Chapter One, consider this a tease: the Lost Boys are not bound by geography, and neither is this story. An “Accidental” Wendy and Her “Lost Boys” – The Global Edition takes me to Bali, Poland, Morocco, and beyond, where new places, new faces, and unexpected moments keep showing up.
Stay tuned…
Down the Rabbit Hole 