A world without a face

Between my three-year-old son, my day job as an assistant professor at the university, my evening job as a software developer, and my night shift writing my Ph.D. dissertation, life was... full. Overflowing, really. I didn’t have much time for existential questions, just enough for caffeine and deadlines.

Each morning, I’d drink my strong, necessary coffee and flip through the Capital newspaper. One day, an ad caught my eye:
“Nokia is looking for software engineers specialized in distributed systems and object-oriented programming. Interviews in Bucharest in March.”

I read it once. Then again.
I was writing my Ph.D. on distributed systems.
I was teaching object-oriented programming during the day.
I was coding in C++ at night.

I turned to my husband and said, joking, “Hey—these guys are literally looking for me.”

He barely glanced at the paper before replying, “You need to apply. Immediately.”

I laughed. It was a joke.
But he was dead serious.

--

October 1st, just ten days after I turned thirty, I stood in the Helsinki airport, waiting for my luggage.

The belt was moving slowly. Empty.
I’ve always liked airports, the movement, the soft hum of voices, the sense of transition. But something felt... strange. Off.

I looked around. People were standing nearby, talking. But I couldn’t hear anything. Not a word. Just silence.

For a moment, I panicked.
Were they whispering? Was something wrong with my hearing? Was I having a stroke?

And then I understood.

This was Finland.
The place I was moving to. A country I knew almost nothing about. A world of silence. A world I didn’t yet recognize.

Life, with all its noise and warmth and familiarity, was behind me.
Now, I would have to learn how to hear differently.
I would have to learn how to listen to silence.

Will I ever find home?

The phone rings. It’s face down on the table, screen hidden.

We’re having lunch on a terrace in Crete. Petteri booked the trip to celebrate my new job. A few weeks ago, my company announced it was shutting down its Finnish branch. Thousands of employees laid off. And yet, somehow, I landed a new role in just two weeks - a VP position at a tech company. It felt surreal. We were lucky. I was lucky.

“Don’t you want to see who it is?” Petteri asks, nodding toward the phone.

I reach over and flip it. My heart skips.

It’s my former manager.

I excuse myself from the table and step away from the clatter of silverware and the sound of waves. I answer. They want to offer me a job at the U.S. headquarters. It would mean relocating by the end of the summer.

When I return, Petteri looks up from his plate. “You said what?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

“You’ll think about it?” His voice tightens. “You already have a great job waiting for you back home. You don’t need another one.”

“I know.”

“And your kids? Mihai is starting college in the fall. Antonia’s about to finish middle school. You really think she’ll want to move away from her friends?”

“I know.”

“You love your life. You’re happy. Aren’t you?” He leans forward. “You can’t seriously be considering this. Let’s just enjoy the rest of this trip. When we’re home, you call them and say thank you, but no.”

He’s right. Of course he’s right. I should have said no right away. There’s no version of this that makes sense. It must be pride. Or ego. Or the thrill of being wanted. Why else didn’t I decline?

We should be celebrating. Ordering champagne. Toasting to the way things worked out.

But instead, I hear myself say, “I don’t feel at home in Finland.”

The words surprise me. Him too.

“What are you talking about? You still think of Romania as your home? And even if you do, how is moving to the U.S. any closer?”

He pauses.

“And what about us?”

I don’t have an answer.

I can’t just shut the door on this offer. Not yet. I don’t know if I’ll take it. Maybe Antonia won’t want to leave. Maybe Mihai’s college plans won’t work out from that far away. Maybe this new job won’t be the right fit after all. Maybe I don’t want to start over again.

So many maybes.

So many fears.

The only thing I’m sure of is this: Finland doesn’t feel like home.
And Romania... Romania isn’t home anymore either.

So maybe the question isn’t why I would move.
Maybe it’s—why not?

Solo travel and the book

When I turned 49, I decided to give myself a gift: a solo trip to Hawaii.

By then, I had worn many titles—divorced woman, single mom, head of household. I was used to being “solo” at home. I’d traveled the world alone for work, sat in countless departure lounges with a laptop and an agenda. I liked the freedom. I had taken plenty of vacations with just the kids, discovering new cities, navigating foreign countries—me and two little passports in tow. I never felt out of place without a man beside me.

But somehow, I had never traveled alone for pleasure. Not once. Not just for me.

Until Hawaii.

Honolulu was beautiful. The hotel had a breezy terrace restaurant by the pool. That evening, I wore the turquoise dress I bought in Greece a few summers ago. It felt like a good-luck charm. I brought a book with me, though I wasn’t sure I’d read it.

The hostess greeted me.

“Table for how many, ma’am?”

“Just one,” I said, smiling.

She hesitated. “Just for one?”

“Yes, just for myself.”

“Okay… don’t worry, I’ll find you a good one.”

I wasn’t worried. Should I have been?

She led me to a lovely table tucked in the corner, with a view of the pool and the horizon where the sun would soon set. She pulled out my chair with care.

“Here you go,” she said gently. “We’ll take good care of you.”

Her kindness was warm, but there was something else in it—a tone I couldn’t quite place. Was it pity? Concern? Or was I just reading too much into it?

A few minutes later, the waitress arrived—closer to my age this time.

“Would you like a cocktail, or maybe a glass of wine to start?”

Now this felt normal.

“A glass of Pinot Gris, please.”

The restaurant was still quiet. A few couples, some families. The air was soft, warm with the scent of the ocean. I leaned back in my chair, soaking it all in. I hadn’t even opened my book yet.

The wine came quickly.

“Here you go, ma’am,” the waitress said, setting it down with a smile.

I smiled back.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”

I blinked. “I’m fine, thank you. I’d like to order, actually.”

But the feeling lingered—like something unspoken was hovering just beneath the surface.

Later, when she brought the food, she touched my shoulder lightly. “If you need anything at all, just let me know. I’ll be checking on you often.”

I thanked her again. “Really, I’m fine. It’s a lovely evening, and everything looks delicious.”

As she walked away, I finally opened my book. I caught her glancing back. She saw the book, smiled, and nodded—as if I’d passed some sort of unspoken test.

By the end of the trip, I’d figured it out: a single woman, of my age, dining alone in Hawaii? It was unusual. But the book made me socially acceptable. The book meant I had purpose. I wasn’t waiting for someone. I wasn’t sad. I was reading.

Back in Seattle, I went out to dinner at a little Italian place near home. I didn’t bring a book. No one cared.

Thank God.

How to remove obstacles with a newspaper

The Cornfield Place

When I was in kindergarten, my mother would read to me every evening before bed. I loved listening to the stories, but more than anything, I wanted to be able to read them myself. Sometimes I didn’t like the ones she picked. Other times, I’d fall in love with a story and want to hear it every single night, but she’d get tired of it and say, “No more, not again.”

I wanted the power to choose the stories. To reread the ones I loved for days, even weeks. I asked my mother to teach me to read. She was a teacher, after all. But she said, “You’ll learn in school. There’s no need to do it before.”

One early spring afternoon, when I was about four years old, I took a blank sheet of paper and laid it over a page from the newspaper. Slowly, I copied every letter I could see. Line by line, I filled that blank page. It took a very long time. Maybe an hour, maybe many - time moves differently when you're four - but I remember it felt endless.

When I finished, I brought the paper to my mom and said proudly, “Look, I can write! Will you teach me to read now?”

She got angry.

To this day, I don’t know why. Maybe she was tired, maybe startled. She looked at the page and said, “This isn’t writing! It’s just scribbles. Rubbish. Don’t waste your time pretending. You’ll learn properly when school starts.”

Her words stung. I started to cry.

“I just want to read, Mom. You didn’t want to help me, so I tried by myself. This is all I could do. Why are you mad?”

She softened then, her voice quieter.

“You’re not going to give up, are you?”

Tears still in my eyes, I shook my head. “I can’t wait. I need to read now.”

And so - she taught me.

By summer, when we went to visit my grandparents, I could already read short stories. It still took me a long time to get through a single one, but the joy of making it to the end on my own was unlike anything I’d felt before.

When I found a story I loved, I’d slip away to the cornfield near my grandparents’ house with the book in hand. There, tucked between tall green stalks, I would read the same tale over and over until I heard my grandmother’s voice calling me to dinner.

To this day, when I find a book I love, I still look for that cornfield place, the quiet corner of the world where the pages come alive and nothing else matters.

What is lost will be found

"Pieces of Me" 
You don't know this new me; I put back my pieces differently. 

The first time I lost something important, I was too young to understand what “losing” meant. I was five, standing in the yard, watching a rubber ball bounce away from me as the other children chased after it. I stayed behind, knowing I wouldn’t catch it even if I tried. The moment stuck—not because of the ball, but because of the feeling. The quiet realization that some things would always be just out of reach.

The first time I found something, I was about nine, sitting at my desk, staring at a sheet of math problems. Numbers made sense in a way the world didn’t. I could rearrange them, solve them, feel certain that my answers were right. That certainty felt like power. The quiet realization that there were things I could do—not just attempt, but succeed at.

Life, I’ve learned, is a constant exchange between those two moments.

Losing, finding, losing again.

When I left Romania, I lost my home. Not just the place, but the sense of belonging that came with it. Finland was cold, not just the winter, but the unfamiliarity. For years, I carried a homesickness that wouldn’t quite fade. Then, slowly, it did. I built a life. I grew to love the silence, the stillness, the way the sun lingered past midnight in summer. Then I moved again. A second uprooting. But this time, I understood something I hadn’t before - home isn’t only geography. It’s something you carry with you. Romania is home. Finland is home. And now, Seattle, with its rain, is home too.

Writing was something I lost without realizing it. As a child, I filled notebooks with words convinced I would grow up to be a writer. But math made sense, and computer engineering became the practical choice. I told myself I would write alongside my career. Then life happened. Children were raised, responsibilities multiplied, and the stories I meant to write never left my head. The words shrank into grocery lists and meeting notes. Then, years later, I picked up a paintbrush. And somehow, something returned. Creativity in color.

What I’ve come to understand is that losing is not the end. It’s just the pause before rediscovery. Confidence fades and resurfaces. Dreams shift and return in new forms. Home is redefined. Passions go dormant and rekindle. Nothing is ever truly lost forever. But neither is anything kept forever. Life is a constant push and pull. The key is knowing that when something slips away, it can—and will—return, sometimes in ways we never expected.

Sometimes, the true art of following our dreams lies in knowing when to set them free