What living abroad has taught me about empathy, community, and our inability to decenter ourselves Since moving to Romania, I've become frustrated by something I never noticed quite so prominently when I lived in America: how difficult it seems to be for Americans to step outside their own experiences. We talk endlessly about empathy, compassion, and understanding, yet we often show remarkably little curiosity about how other people live, what they struggle with, or how our o

I have been thinking a lot lately about reciprocity, and about how difficult it has become to create the kind of community so many of us say we are missing. This is complicated territory for me, because I was once a very dedicated self-love coach. I grew up in religious extremism, in a world where obligation and self-sacrifice were confused with righteousness, and learning that access to me was my right alone was fundamental to my recovery. I had to learn that I was not respo

When I first came to Romania, I fell in love with a little kitten. He died only a month later from complications from worms, and I buried him in the forest here, in a country that was still almost entirely new to me. Around his little grave were some enormous snails, slowly moving across the moss. The image stayed with me and I later read about the symbolism of snails, who embody their homes. Over the past year, as my relationship with the idea of home has become much more co

A year ago, I wrote about why I chose Romania. I wrote about democracy indexes and homicide rates, immigration pathways and cost of living. I wrote about the Carpathians reminding me of the Appalachians, about history that was still being lived instead of preserved behind museum glass, and about choosing my home carefully because I couldn’t afford to uproot my life over again. I still believe in all of that research. Maybe even more than I did then. But a year is long enough

There is a kind of labor that disappears almost as soon as it is done. The table is set, food appears, candles are lit, and somehow there are enough chairs. Someone remembered that one person does not eat meat and another needs a ride. New people are introduced so no one stands awkwardly alone, the music feels right, the room is warm, and by the time everyone arrives, it can seem as though the gathering simply came into being on its own. But someone imagined it first. The Mag

For more than a decade, I dreamed of living in Europe. I imagined old cities, village life, traditions shaped over generations, and the possibility of building a life that felt a little more intentional. When we finally moved to Romania, it wasn’t an impulsive escape or a sudden reinvention. It was something I had been moving toward for a very long time. What I couldn’t fully imagine was everything that would come after the move itself. The past year has involved immigration

I am the keeper of ordinary things— the soup stirred slowly, the candle burned down to its end, the chair pulled closer when someone needs to stay. I have learned that home does not make itself. It is built in the returning, in the sweeping up, in the trying again, in choosing what belongs here and what will never cross the threshold again. There are easier kinds of magic. But mine has always been this: to take what the world has given me and decide what it will become. To ma

Autumn in Transylvania is breathtaking. Golden forests spread across the Carpathians, mist curls through the mountains and settles around medieval towers, and the markets fill with apples, walnuts, mushrooms, and the abundance of the season. It is the kind of beauty I dreamed about before moving here, and there are moments when it still catches me completely by surprise. Yet, as the air cools and the leaves begin to fall, I find myself aching for another kind of autumn—the on