A letter from someone rediscovering the joy of being met

I’ve been sitting with something unfamiliar lately. Not heartbreak. Not longing. Something quieter, more tentative—like the hush in the air when a conversation turns unexpectedly meaningful.

It started with a message. Then another. Then a moment where someone said, “I was really lonely,” and trusted me enough to leave the sentence hanging.

Ha and I haven’t met yet. Not properly. Not over coffee or a meal. But somehow we’ve already shared something more valuable than proximity—we’ve shared attention. She read my book. She reflected on it. And then she told me how it made her feel.

In Vietnam, that kind of vulnerability doesn’t come lightly. Nor should it.

She didn’t flirt. She didn’t flatter. She told me about four years of quiet isolation in Đà Lạt, of watching the world move while she sat still. She told me her daughter is with her. She told me she wants to meet people who think deeply, who speak other languages, who carry stories inside them.

And then she said she wanted to meet me.

I don’t take that lightly.

I’m old enough to know what matters. And what matters isn’t whether someone likes you straight away or replies quickly to your texts. What matters is whether someone sees you. Whether they’re willing to show a little of their own truth, too.

So I’m doing something I haven’t done in a while.

I’m preparing.

Not just with logistics—though yes, I’m looking up bus times and hotel options and planning the best breakfast spot in Nha Trang. But I’m also preparing the parts of me that had gone a bit quiet. The curious parts. The generous parts. The parts that still believe that sharing a meal and a story might change two lives, just a little.

I don’t know what’s ahead. But I know I’m not afraid of hope anymore.

And maybe that’s the real beginning.