Category: life in colombia

Posted in family, life in colombia, Memoir/Personal Essay, relationships, Uncategorized

Out of the Blue and Into My Inbox

Posted on by hummingsfromparadise

Recently, something unexpected landed in my inbox, one of those moments that makes you stop and read twice.

A message on Facebook Messenger. From my niece.

I hadn’t seen Renee since my daughter’s funeral in 2010. Back then, she was just a baby. I don’t remember much from that week. Grief has a way of blurring everything. And yet here she was, years later, reaching out across time, distance, and the long silence my brother left behind.

“Are you my Aunt?”

She explained that she didn’t know much about me or, really, much about her father’s side of the family at all. Just fragments. I lived in Colombia. That I had an inn.

And then the part that made me smile:

“I found you by searching ‘Inn in Colombia, South America, Michele.’ A review came up with your name. Then I found your Instagram and Facebook and thought… what are the chances?”

What are the chances, indeed? I love that my little resort is so well known that she could find me with just a first name and a country. Sometimes the internet works beautifully.

Now, you might wonder how a family becomes this disconnected — how a niece grows up knowing almost nothing about her aunt. The answer isn’t simple, but it isn’t new either.

My brother has always operated this way. If he disapproved of a choice I made, he would disappear. Not for days or weeks but for years. When I became a flight attendant, he decided it wasn’t a worthy profession. Gone. When I moved to Newport. Gone. When I divorced. Gone again. And like clockwork, he would resurface as if nothing had happened, and I would let him back in, because he was my brother.

He did this to everyone: our parents, our cousins, anyone who didn’t fit neatly into his idea of how things should be. When I told him I was moving to Colombia, I got a speech full of old American stereotypes — cartels, danger, fear. The Colombia I know and live in every day is something else entirely. But that was the last real conversation we ever had. And when he faded out of my life for good, he took Renee and her sister with him. They grew up without knowing me, without knowing any of us on that side of the family.

I wish it could have been different.

I’ve never lived my life according to what other people thought I should do. My brother said it best himself, once: “You have never lived a boring life. You always do what no one else would dream of.” He wasn’t wrong. But living freely has a cost, and sometimes that cost is distance from the people who couldn’t follow you there.

What I didn’t expect was this: back in December, I had been thinking about Renee and her sister. I can’t explain why. Just a quiet wondering — what do they look like now? Who have they become? It felt like nothing more than a passing thought at the time.

And then, a few months later, her message appeared in my inbox.

Life can be mysterious that way.

We’ve been chatting since then, slowly filling in the gaps. Renee had no idea she had a cousin, my son. She also didn’t know about Amaya, my granddaughter, her first cousin once removed. My son is looking forward to meeting her and her sister. There is still so much to find out about each other, and that is exactly what makes this feel like the beginning of something, rather than the end of a long silence.

I’ve invited both girls to visit me here in Colombia, and they want to come. The thought of sitting together in this place I’ve built, sharing stories over good food with the mountains and hummingbirds all around us, feels surreal and deeply healing.

My brother kept us apart for years. But his daughter found me on her own with nothing more than a vague search, a first name, and her own curiosity.

Some threads, it turns out, are stronger than the silence. Life has a strange and beautiful way of returning things to us just when we think they are gone forever.

Thank you for reading my story.

If this touched you, reminded you of someone you’ve lost touch with, or inspired you to reach out to a loved one, I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below and share your own experience.

And if you enjoy stories about family, healing, life in Colombia, and the unexpected ways life brings us full circle, be sure to follow my blog so you don’t miss future posts.

Sometimes the most meaningful connections arrive when we least expect them.

Posted in Colombia, Glampingcolombia, life in colombia, Notes from Paradise, Uncategorized, Villa Migelita Ecolodge

What the Storm Revealed

Posted on by hummingsfromparadise

Welcome to my first newsletter.

I’m so glad you’re here. I wanted to start with something real from my life here in the mountains of Colombia.

In February, a bad storm came through, and it made one thing painfully clear: I was not prepared for disaster. In a matter of moments, that storm turned everything upside down. It brought emotional turmoil and damage to my glamping place, and my community in El Meson was hit hard, too. We were all suddenly in the same situation, trying to deal with what had happened.

Looking out from the side of my Villa. The view opened up. You can see the damage on my neighbor’s side of the structures.

In the aftermath, I’m still waiting for the man who handles all the work here at Villa Migelita Ecolodge to arrive, along with the insurance adjuster to assess the damage. Living high in the mountains has taught me many things, patience being one of them. There’s no rushing repairs when your options are limited. I can only do what I can, and stressing about it won’t change the outcome.

For now, I explain the situation to my guests and keep moving forward. I need a new balcony roof, but the room is still rentable — as long as guests don’t mind skipping the balcony if it rains. At the moment, the damaged roof is being held up by one very strong wire, which feels both slightly concerning and very real life here.

Thankfully, my workers removed the fallen trees right away— they know this isn’t just my home; it’s my business.

So while I wait, I’ve started removing the trees near the house that could cause future damage. One worker finally wrote me and said he would be arriving. Hallelujah! And honestly? There’s a bright side. The sunlight pouring into the property now is incredible. I’m seeing light and views I haven’t noticed in years. I’m planning to turn the leftover branches into bird feeding stations and use some for my orchids.

When disaster strikes, all we see at first is the damage —until later, when the positive side begins to reveal itself. My views are now incredible from every side of the property. The trees that fell on the neighboring land opened up the mountains in a way I haven’t seen in years. What once felt like destruction is slowly starting to look a lot like perspective.

As my mom always said, make a plus out of a minus.

My views are beautiful and far-reaching again

Sometimes life clears away what we didn’t know was blocking the view.

Posted in life in colombia, Love & Dating, Personal Growth, relationships, self-reflection, Uncategorized

Love Bombed, Maybe: Choosing My Peace (Part 3)

Posted on by hummingsfromparadise

The morning LB left, I realized I felt lighter, as if a weight had been lifted. It was still early, the sun not yet visible as the soft light of dawn slowly appeared. The stillness around me was comforting. The hummingbirds began to flit near the feeders, starting their day, while my dogs gathered around me, ready for their morning meal.

I stood watching them eat, then wandered to the balcony, where I watched the hummingbirds move quickly and effortlessly, exactly where they were meant to be. I felt something shift inside me. I didn’t feel sadness, nor relief. Just clarity—that quiet sense of knowing I was exactly where I wanted to be, without the need for another person to define my life.

The life I had built in Colombia came back to me in that moment—shaped by my instincts, my intuition, my mistakes, and my decisions. Standing there, looking out over the mountains, I realized how much I loved this life.

And for the first time, I allowed myself to fully accept something I hadn’t said out loud before: I didn’t need anyone else to fill the space beside me.

Christmas brought rest after a busy month of hosting guests at my glamping site. LB was with his family in the U.S., and we were back to sending memes on WhatsApp. I felt rested, finally free from his constant neediness—the disrupted sleep, the phone in hand at all hours.

As December came to a close, I was busy preparing for New Year’s Eve, one of my busiest times of the year. Every room was filled. And yet, I felt content.

My life in Colombia had healed me in ways I hadn’t fully recognized before. I no longer felt the need for someone else to complete me. If someone wants to join me on my journey, they would have to be an equal—grounded, self-aware, and whole in their own right.

I have spent years building this life, shaping it through reflection, growth, and hard-earned clarity. And I know how important it is to protect that.

LB had returned to his life in the United States, but I noticed a quiet shift in our communication. He would let my messages sit unread for long periods or respond with a simple heart. Then, after hours of silence, he would send a string of memes, most of them centered on love.

I had been thinking about how to talk to him about his habits during his visit in December. I knew I couldn’t have him back without some honest conversation and meaningful changes. As I mentioned in my last blog, he had said he would visit every month, but never said when he would return. I wasn’t asking by then—I already knew my feelings had shifted while he was here.

Then I got the text that changed everything.

It started simply: “I don’t understand why you aren’t reading my messages.”

His reply was: “I don’t appreciate being chastised for not immediately responding like you’re an unhappy client.”

Just one dismissive message. That was enough.

In that moment, I realized continuing the communication wasn’t healthy for me. I don’t do drama. I value my peace. So I responded the way I always do when something feels off: I stepped back into silence.

It wasn’t just the text—it was everything that had been building beneath it. And suddenly, I no longer felt the need to address any of it.

Later, he sent me an email. He argued at length that he had always been direct with me, that my blogs misrepresented him, and that I had never raised my concerns in real time.

I had planned to do that gently, in my own way, but his reaction to a simple question had already shown me how those conversations would go.

Reading his email, I noticed a pattern. He focused on what I hadn’t done, not on what had actually happened between us. In that moment, I knew I didn’t need to respond in detail. I already understood enough.

I found his idea of love interesting. He said his feelings were genuine, that he was the thoughtful one, and that his love was real—yet there was never any accountability. The text he had sent was simply ignored, as if it didn’t exist.

I had to laugh.

He tried to provoke me, calling me a “mess” as a joke, and I replied, “Maybe you should add saying ‘I’m sorry’ to your resume.” He didn’t know how to read me at all.

Then he quickly replied, asking if I would write a fourth blog titled, “What if the Love Bomber Really Loved Me?” and signed it, Warm Regards, The Love Bomber. I actually laughed out loud.

When we first met in Bogotá, he told me he didn’t like predictable women, and that I wasn’t one. Yet in the end, his behavior was entirely predictable. Instead of taking responsibility, he continued to shift the blame.

His last email was well written—I’ll give him that. Maybe someone else would have found it convincing. But for me, it only confirmed what I already knew.

So I did what felt right. I stepped back, I reflected, and I wrote. I share my experiences not to convince anyone, but simply because they are mine.

The ending wasn’t dramatic. There was no big confrontation, and I’ve realized I didn’t need one. We’ve stayed in touch, but nothing we’ve said has changed how I feel.

I don’t need him to understand. I don’t need an apology.

What matters most is peace—and I have it.

Sometimes, love doesn’t fail for lack of feeling. It fails when one person cannot meet the other where they need them to be. LB liked to say he was being direct, but I’ve learned that “direct” can often be a mask for hurtful words.

“What I thought was an ending was really a return—to myself, my life, and my peace.”

PS: LB is the Love Bomber. He has the traits of someone who isn’t fully secure, yet he is a decent person. I hold no grudges. Some love stories end suddenly; others quietly fade away.

Either way, I am still me—still laughing, still living my life, unbothered and one step ahead.