73rd letter from Mihai Tue 6 Jan, 2026 Colmar, France Hey Reader, I’m back in Colmar after ten days in Romania. Before sitting down to write, we were at the table sharing a galette des rois. One of those small French family rituals that mark the season. We cut the cake, passed the plates around, and one slice had the little figurine inside. This time, it landed on my plate. Paper crown included. We laughed and moved on. This trip in Romania felt different. For the first time in my life, I...
8 days ago • 4 min read
72nd letter from Mihai Tue 30 Dec, 2025 Titu, Romania Hey Reader, This is the last letter of 2025. I’m back in Romania, at my parents’ place. At the end of the year, that contrast feels stronger. It’s easier to notice what changed, what stayed, and how I relate to my own life now. This is what this letter is mostly about. This year, more than anything, I stayed with something. I’ve written over a hundred letters across the weekly Rooted Dad Letters and the Cold Showers. The rhythm really...
15 days ago • 4 min read
71st letter from Mihai Tue 23 Dec, 2025 Colmar, France After ten years in the military, I wanted freedom. So for most of my twenties and the beginning of my thirties, I lived without much structure or direction. I explored, tested things, and moved often. I traveled to more than thirty countries. I volunteered teaching English in Colombia, worked on permaculture farms in Portugal, built stone walls in the Canary Islands, and guided cycling, snowmobile, and hiking trips around the world. That...
23 days ago • 4 min read
70th letter from Mihai Tue 16 Dec, 2025 Colmar, France Hey Reader, I’m writing this from my desk, which looks different than it did a week ago. Over the past days I’ve been decluttering both my physical and digital space. Old notes, book highlights, saved articles, links I never came back to. For the first time in a long while, they’re now in one place, in a system I can actually use. It’s not perfect, but it works for me. And something in me relaxed when I finished. That timing matters,...
30 days ago • 3 min read
69th letter from Mihai Tue 9 Dec, 2025 Colmar, France My weekend project, the spoon I carved Hey Reader, I’m writing this from my office in Colmar. Outside it’s full of lights and people and Christmas energy. Inside it’s quiet. I’ve spent a lot of time here lately. Maybe too much. Thinking, planning, doubting, trying to convince myself I know what I’m doing. It’s the kind of silence that doesn’t always feel like rest. Sometimes it feels like holding my breath. A few days ago I had a moment...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Imagine this. You wake up early.The house is quiet, but your mind isn’t.You didn’t sleep well after last night’s argument with your wife.Your chest still feels tight from the things you didn’t say. You grab your keys and step outside.Your neighbor is walking his daughter to school. She holds his hand while they laugh about something small.You look at them for a moment.You feel a knot in your throat. I wish I had mornings like that. I wish I had time for it. You get in your car and rush to...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
A lesson I didn’t understand until I became a dad When I go back to my parents’ place in Romania for Christmas, my mind goes straight to the house we started building when I was around twelve. It has been part of our family story for so long that it feels a part of the land itself. I remember those early days clearly. The foundations went in first, and for a while everything moved with a kind of momentum. My uncle worked beside us, and family friends came over to help whenever they could. I...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
It’s been a long time since I’ve done something only for myself. Today at 12:30, I’m doing something that isn’t for work or family. Something I’m choosing to do just because I want to. Today at 12:30, I’m going to the barber. I could easily do it at home. I’ve done it many times before. But there’s something about putting it in the calendar that feels different. Knowing it’s there, fixed, and it’s mine. It’s simple, but it feels good. Back in the day they called this common sense. Now they...
2 months ago • 2 min read
65th letter from Mihai Tue 11 Nov, 2025 Colmar, France Hey Reader, For a very long time, I thought I needed to find my thing.My specialty, my passion, the one thing that would make me feel alive. I also believed I needed a single word to define myself, something I could say when people asked what I do or who I am. And because I didn’t have that word, I felt like a failure. Everyone else seemed to have theirs. Engineer, football player, journalist. They all looked like they had found the...
2 months ago • 3 min read