Will I return to Venice?
Dear Me, From Here: A Letter to My Younger Self
In the Fall of 2007, I moved to Venice.
At least, that was the plan. I had 90 days to figure out the details and find a way to stay forever.
But, before I could get it together, time ran out. And a family health situation required me to be present in the US for however long it was going to take to get resolved.
Standing in my freezing Venetian kitchen, stirring a pot of extremely unromantic spaghetti noodles, I wondered if this was the end of trying to see what my life would be like if I lived in another country.
Would I ever come back to live in Italy?
And if so, when?
This is the letter I’d write to the woman I was when I left Venice.
July 19, 2025
Dear Vivian,
The answer to your question is no.
No, you will not return to Italy. At least not in the next almost-18 years.
And no, you will not end up with the Englishman. Or the guy in your Italian class. Or the man with the cupcake on his business card who told you that you were not an easy woman to forget.
He’ll have long forgotten you by now.
When you return to the States in a few days, you will stay.
Not forever. But for a while.
First, because you feel you must. And then because you feel you should. And then because you are content.
And then, when you can no longer find a reason to stay, you will go.
Which means that Italy isn’t the end.
It was the beginning.
It was the first time you moved abroad. There will be another.
The second time will last at least a decade. Maybe several decades. Maybe forever.
So stop thinking that this was your one shot and now it’s over. It’s not.
You are not on your 8 of 9.
The fat lady isn’t even warming up.
Just because it’s not happening now doesn’t mean it’s not happening ever.
I’m writing this letter from my apartment in Portugal. Which means that you will move and live in another country. Again.
You’ve got about 9 years in New York before you leave for the second time.
Please don’t spend those years shoving your desire to see what your life could be like in another country into the back of the closet. You want this too much to let “the 90 days you spent in Venice one Fall when you were young and adventurous” be a cute anecdote that you bring out every time you order a Spritz at the bar.
You are still adventurous.
And there are still adventures to be had.
I’d rather you spend the next 9 years living your favorite City life. While knowing that you will have another go at a different life in a different country. Because then you can make different choices about how you spend the next 9 years.
So that you can be more intentional about where and when and how you will leave this City you love to find another home in another place.
It’s hard to leave a place you love. This is something you already know. But you will know it again and again and again. And other than the next 9 months (which are going to absolutely suck), this next part of your life in NYC is gonna be pretty darn good. Until it isn’t.
You’ll really enjoy the people you’re about to work with and one of those people will turn out to be your Christina Yang. You’ll go skiing in Chile and surfing in Costa Rica and buy a timeshare in Vegas that will end up changing your life. You’ll pay off a whole bunch of student loans. And before you leave, you will finally get to live in your favorite of all the NYC neighborhoods.
You’ll learn how to trust new friendships. How to reinvent your life, embrace change, and develop muscles for pivoting from one thing to another to another. You’ll discover resilience you didn’t know you had.
These are all things that you will need when you leave New York the second time.
And then one day, you will get a promotion at work and that will be the beginning of the end of this part of your life.
Because even though New York City is the love of your life and you will leave with tears streaming down your face. Being comfortable isn’t the same as being fulfilled. And sometimes, the deepest kind of belonging is knowing that you’re not moving on so much as you’re moving forward in your life. Instead of standing still.
You have 9 years. Do all of the things you’re going to do.
But also maybe do this:
Start exploring work you would love to do that doesn’t have to take place in the US. You can find work or build a business once you’re overseas, but It. Is. Hard. Like all capital letters hard. And stressful. So stressful.
Maybe start an official side hustle and prepare it to be your official main hustle. Or seek out employment opportunities with US based firms with an international office.
If you can set yourself up to not have to worry about how you’re going to make money to support the life you want to be living? Trust me, this is what you want to do.
And start socking away as much money as you can. You’ll want to have more than you think.
There will be flights and visa expenses and down payments and deposits and the currency exchange rates are fluid, which means that every month things will cost more or less than they did the month before for no reason other than the changing value of one US dollar. You don’t need a million dollars, but the stronger the net below you when you’re swinging solo on the trapeze? The better.
Learn another language. Portuguese is the language that I need to be fluent in right now and so maybe you should learn Portuguese. But to be honest, even though I don’t live in Italy and haven’t even been back to visit, I wish I’d kept up with the language lessons. I’d love to be fluent in Italian right now. Or French. Something.
Being fluent in another language will open doors that you don’t even know right now that you’d like to walk through.
Please sign up for a real, professionally taught language class. And keep going until you are fluent. Until there is nothing more for them to teach you.
It’ll be fun. You’ll meet cool people and do cool things. And who knows what will happen then.
So now that I’ve given you all these things to do when you get back to the City, I’m a little nervous that you’ll actually do them.
And if one thing is different, then maybe everything will be different and all the wonderful things about the past 9 years of my life in SE Asia and Europe will vanish.
And that would be a shame.
So, here are some other things you MUST do.
Make sure that you are at Bottle Beach on Koh Phangan in Thailand in August of 2016. Make sure you order a gin and tonic from the bar and make sure you sit down at the table where an English woman is also drinking a gin and tonic and make sure you start a conversation with her. She will become the truest of lifelong friends and you do not want to miss out on that.
Make sure that you live in Hoi An, Vietnam starting in November 2016. And when Ha takes you out on her motorbike to find an apartment, immediately say yes to the room on the second floor of the building near the Old Town, even though it’s not exactly what you were looking for.
And when the tenant on the ground floor invites you to join her and her friends for cocktails, make sure you say yes. These are your people. The first year you spend in Hoi An will quite possibly be one of the best years of your life because of these people. You do not want to miss this.
Make sure that you’re registered on Find A Crew. And when you get a random email from a random guy asking for help sailing his catamaran from Koh Samui up to Bangkok, say yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
I know you don’t know how to sail. I still don’t know how to sail. It doesn’t matter.
You do not want to miss captaining this sailboat through the Gulf of Thailand in the dark of night when everyone in the world is sleeping except you and all the stars in the sky.
Make sure that you spend as much time as you can in Edinburgh. It is one of the 4 places on the planet that will feel like home. Every chance you get, be in town for Hogmanay and do the Cèilidh under the Castle. Trust me. You want to do this. If you invite the English woman you met on Bottle Beach to join you, she probably will.
And the last thing before I let you go is this.
Make sure you at least have a look at Portugal. I know you’ve never been and don’t know anything about it. But you will. It is also one of the 4 places on the planet that will feel like home.
Which means that the answer to the question you’re really asking?
Is yes.
Good news!
If you want to know more about me, you can check me out at:
Substack: The Expat Diaries
Substack: How to Stuff Your Home
Website: ftbhomeorganizing.com
LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivian-najib/
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What a lovely letter to read!!!
Miss, THAT was AWESOME!!! Thank You!!!