Goedemorgen fellow learn-it-all 👋

Greetings from KLM hub in the Netherlands: Schiphol airport 🇳🇱

I’m heading to London for a couple days to meet up with some entrepreneurial writing Internet friends. Totally stoked!

Three things I am grateful for this morning:

To UK Visas hasty response with my 16 pound “ETA” Visa because I already had a panic attack at the check-in desk. Thankfully it was prompt, but I am a little annoyed that online check-in nor the Internet prepared me that for sunrise surprise.
To the whole pink lady apple I ate, including the apple core aka the “klockhuis”—one of my dad’s favorite tricks so that he can say that word. That’s calming my nerves.
To the security guards that checked my purse and didn’t confiscate the tin-foiled half loaf of slightly burnt banana bread I’m eating for breakfast at the moment.

Anywho, my nephew Guus that I’ve been living with turned 5 years old yesteryday. I gifted him some swim gogggles and an inflatable water squirting crocodile. He loves his “cadeautjes”. I mean who doesn’t? But he really does. It was such infectious energy to witness his surprise to start my day.

Isn’t it such a delight that culturally around the world we sing songs to celebrate another rotation around the sun?

At age five in the Netherlands, it is strongly encouraged for children to take swim lessons. I am so excited for him. Ah to be a kid again learning to kick and float and blow bubbles. That was the best.

Now, let’s dive into letter 270 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!

~~~

❓Question to think about

What can I learn from longing in my life?

🖊️Writing

💞Learning from Longing

On Sunday, I woke up in Holland to a gray, rainy sky. My first of what will be countless gloomy days here. I felt a little lonely as I made banana bread. I then accidentally burned it.

To redeem the day, I walked 2 kilometers to the cinema in the rain to see Lilo and Stitch. The ticket was 9 euros. I was the only adult there besides one parent. During the intermission, the theater was full of bleached-headed blondies running around below the height of my belly button. As they exuded energy from their Coca-Cola sugar highs, I indulged in my own with black licorice “drop”. When the lights dimmed again and Stitch chose to leave his newfound Hawaii ohana to do what he thought was best, I bawled my eyes out. I couldn’t stop crying.

Then it hit me. That is something I did just over ten months ago.

I published letter 226 about my heartbreak from leaving the season of life I had in Hawaii for three years.

It was a beautiful life with daily ocean walks, spontaneous encounters with Uncle Choo Choo playing his uke or a familiar face from the community garden strolling their baby. Impromptu poetry reading on my lanai to my friend Hannah. Banana pancakes and fruit salads with Emily. Sunshine every day without a need to check the weather app or air quality index. Safe tap water. Witnessing the wild and wondrous banyan tree on my walks. Familiar weekly rituals: yoga under the palms, lanai writing sessions, ARS banana bread, pickup volleyball, card games, self-care Mondays, and meditation in the valley.

It was a life of mountain mornings and sunset swims.

To have experienced it feels like a kind of self-spoiling. And I still mourn it. It’s like going on a new date but constantly comparing it to an unforgettable adventure with an ex. The comparison robbing the new moment of its joy. And yet, it’s okay.

It's okay to feel sad about missing the past. It is also a reminder that it was a life where I realized I have a vibrant creative spirit and the ability to be courageous and cultivate community. Where the rituals allowed me to feel grounded, something I am yearning for again.

I’m not writing this to throw a pity party. I chose to leave Hawaii. I was trying to make it work, but sometimes the happiness felt phony or forced. An internal whisper became insistent that there was more for me to explore elsewhere. Feeling too comfortable made me feel complacent, like the place wasn’t welcoming me forward.

Emotions of longing come in strange waves. It has been over five years since I lost my second mother, my Omi. The person to whom I dedicated my first published book. The first person I saw truly laugh and enjoy my writing. When I was in fourth grade writing a story imagining life as a big toe at Cedar Point, the largest amusement park in the world, in Sandusky, Ohio.

Last week, as I rode the bus through Voorburg to support my cousin’s clothing store opening, I thought about Omi. Her stories of taking the Voorburg trolley to school from Prins Albertlaan with her friend Deeny, giggling about bunny sightings or braiding each other’s hair. Tears streamed down my face. When will this emotional journey end? Hopefully never. Because it means the love was real.

Memory is a miraculous part of being human. Unlike a Shiba Inu dog without a homing signal, we carry emotional maps that let us return — physically or mentally — to places and moments that have shaped us. Some say that scrolling through old photos or journal entries is a time-waster. Indulgent or unnecessary. But I see it as an opportunity to be grateful for what was and a portal to the future.

Nostalgia is a way to design a life that honors the best bits of our bygone days.

Longing for yesteryear allows us to learn and say yes to what we want to create this year.

Emotions aren’t simple. We can feel joy for what was and grief that it’s gone, all at once.

I’m happy to be here in Holland, following a new dream. And at the same time, I miss Hawaii, my past dream and home for three years.

After leaving the cinema, I stopped by Albert Heijn and bought a little mint plant. It looked just like the first one I bought in Chicago at my first city apartment— meandering and wild. It serves as a small reminder to myself that I’m growing a new dream here, too. It may not look like banyan trees or ocean swims yet, but it’s fresh, alive, and mine to tend.

This letter is an invitation. I permit you to miss the places and people from your past. Much like the waves of grief for my grandma or the sadness of leaving Hawaiian sunshine, nostalgia flows in similar ways.

I invite you to take note of what you miss.

Notice the nostalgia.

Witness it without judgment.

And see what you can learn from yesteryear.

Ask yourself: What do I miss most about that moment?

And how can I bring some of this back into my life now?

🎧Listening

🔍Word to define

Nostalgia: homesick, a severe and sometimes fatal form of melancholia due to homesickness; a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal affections; regretfulness; sentimentality; reminiscence.

🌟Quote to inspire

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow"—Audrey Hepburn

📸Photos of the Week

I joined a run club in Den Haag, and someone was injured, so I stepped in for their race. The Ekiden is an annual relay race in the modern city of Rotterdam (the city that got bombed and rebuilt after WWII). I was the 6th person in my team, which meant I was the anchor. In swimming, this meant the last person was always the fastest, but this race was more of a fun run, thankfully. I set a goal to run the 7.2 km in between 42 and 45 minutes. I ran it in 43minutes. It’s been exciting to get back into running again and to make some new friends! :-)

🙏Shoutouts

to my cousin Sander, Suus, Joep and Guus for hosting me the past week. It has been so refreshing to be living with a family and to peak behind the curtain of a young family’s life

I appreciate you reading this!

If ideas resonated, I’d love you to press the heart button, leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetjl@gmail.com.

Keep on learning 😁

Tot ziens 🌺 🌺

Jen

PS - if you enjoyed this letter, you’d probably also enjoy reading: