2~ Jump.

December 7.

We’re on our way to the airport with Joan, staying calm and drinking mate, the ultimate Argentine potion that makes every moment more beautiful and a little more bearable.

I can still see myself looking out the window of what was our home for a while. The first snowfall of the year in Copenhagen. Furious. Beautiful.

We watched the snowflakes fall, so hygge (1) that I still remember that immense desire to stay there forever...But we were in the car, like a couple talking about trivial things, like any other day, pretending or wanting to pretend that it wasn’t a goodbye.

We enter the airport. I check in my bag, and we go straight to Departures.

It seemed like it would be a quick farewell with no melancholy tone. I like that because otherwise, it shatters me into a thousand pieces. So it’s better if it’s quick, even though I know it’ll keep hurting for a long time, like a post-op recovery.

We reach passport control.That moment I’ve been through a thousand times before, where one person leaves and the other stays, waving goodbye and hiding tears behind a smile that tries to erase the unresolved nature of physical distances.

My legs were shaking.

– What am I doing? – I asked myself. Am I really going to India? Because if you get on this plane, you’re really going to India…

No one is waiting for me there.

What am I going to do?

The only thing I wanted at that moment was peace and quiet after a tough year. Maybe just lying in bed in a fetal position for an indefinite amount of time, watching movies and eating chocolate.

Instead, I was going to India. Alone.

I look at Joan with panic in my eyes, almost shaking but trying to hide it. It was the moment to either turn back or move forward. The crucial moment—the one I had imagined and feared so much: the moment I could decide not to board the plane and back out.

I look at the person who had been my boyfriend for four years. Four years of coming and going, of encounters and missed connections.

Now, my ex-boyfriend? My friend?

Asking ourselves what we were at this moment after everything going through my mind was too much. My head was filled with questions, stacked in an order of chaos and priority.

I tell him I’m scared as hell, that I don’t know if I can do this. And I don’t say it just for the sake of saying it—I mean it. I was scared as hell. My life flashes before my eyes like the trailer of someone else’s life.

Neither my mother nor anyone in my family knows about this decision. For three months, our conversations had been a simulation of a life that wasn’t the one I was actually living.

She said that in India, people were kidnapped and organs were trafficked. When I told her about my idea to go there, she almost had a meltdown. A real one. I got scared.

She told me to do whatever I wanted, but that she didn’t want to know about it. I’m her only daughter, and after my dad passed away, it’s just the two of us. She was scared—I don’t blame her.

After thinking about it a lot, I decided to respect her decision and, in some way, to protect her. And to protect myself, too.

Almost no one knew about this decision.I didn’t need more questions I couldn’t answer or more external anxieties piling onto my own.I was alone on this boat, and at times, everything seemed like madness.

I was crossing that threshold where no one can really understand what you’re feeling—not even yourself.

Joan grabbed my shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and spoke with an unshakable calm and certainty:

– Of course, you can! – And he laughed, as if he could see something that I couldn’t. – You’re doing it! – and he shook my shoulders .

He steadied me. He told me what I needed to hear. To this day, I still thank him infinitely for that decisive gesture. He believed in me when I couldn’t, and he made me believe in myself too.

I believe him. I change my posture. I hold my head high.

I place my hand on his chest for a long moment, we embrace tightly.

I look ahead and start walking.I hand over my passport, go through security. We smile at each other from a distance, with airport security standing between us.

We say goodbye with so much love that I can’t put it into words.

I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. He doesn’t know either.

I don’t have a return ticket.

I’m leaving to search for something, though I don’t know exactly what.I think I’m looking for myself, like the half a million people who go to India searching for meaning and spirituality.

I’m searching for meaning and spirituality.

I walk forward. I breathe. I keep going.

I want to run away and cry, but I hold back.

I empty my mind and focus only on walking forward.I go through more checkpoints.

I pass through the Duty-Free almost like a zombie, filled with questions. I feel my legs moving on their own, on autopilot.

I look for my gate and sit down. I try to eat a homemade argentinian sandwich that my friend Erika made for me. Outside of home, that’s as valuable as gold—it’s like a hug of strength, wrapped as a gift. It was all squished inside a damp napkin.

I take two bites. Anxiety kicks in, my breathing gets heavy. I put the sandwich down.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. I calm myself down.

– I can do this – I tell myself.

Just then, as if by cosmic magic or causality, Kaare calls me—my colleague from the clinic and my Danish Guru, as I had started calling him without him knowing.

He was a tall man with fair skin and clear blue eyes. He was the one who helped me plan the trip, taught me everything I first learned about India, and supported me through the whole process. He explained every Indian god to me with a slideshow of images, homemade Indian food, and tarot readings included.

His words always gave me peace and made me feel a little more normal, a little less crazy.

He said something in English that I didn’t fully understand, but I translated it as words of encouragement. I think he said, "You won’t be alone in India."

Nervous and rushing my English, I replied, "I will!" 

Whatever—he was giving me strength, and feeling the synchronicity between my terror and his random call was a sign of peace.

I stopped pacing around the gate hallways, sat down, and once again tried to stay calm.

My journey had four flights.

First to Amsterdam, then Abu Dhabi, then Delhi, and finally Rishikesh—my first destination in India—all in one go. Three days of traveling, two nights sleeping in airports. As if I were giving my body extra time to process what was happening.

The flight attendant makes an announcement. I board the plane.

I’m in Denmark, but the universe places an Argentine next to me. We exchange a few words, and he tells me I’m very brave.

– Yeah, damn right, I am! – I repeat to myself. How is it that I only believe it when others say it—like Joan or a random stranger in a pointless airplane conversation?

I terminated my contract, left my home—once again. I also canceled my job at the clinic.

I couch-surfed at friends' places for almost two months, carrying a small bag of clothes from place to place so I could save up the money I needed.I stuffed all my belongings into a suitcase in a basement and gave away everything that didn’t fit—again, for the second time. I told my boss I was going to India with a one-way ticket and that I had no idea when I’d be back. And my mom… nothing, I told her nothing. I kept that secret inside, like a tiny pebble in my shoe, something I’d figure out how to deal with later.She still thinks I’m in Denmark, living my normal life, working and making money.I keep my questions to myself.

The plane takes off.

Suddenly, through the window, we see the sun. Our faces fill with that yellow morning light, the kind that makes you squint.

– See? The sun was there after all! – the Argentine says, and we laugh together, our eyes crinkling. It had been weeks since we last saw the sun in Copenhagen. We had gotten so used to the gray sky that the sun now felt like magic.

In reality, it is magic—we just don’t appreciate it enough.

The flight attendant brings us food, which we didn’t expect on a 50-minute flight.

We glance at each other and laugh again, sharing the moment.

Since we’re already in abundance mode, I ask for juice!

– Anything else? – she asks me. Those words resonate with me.

I take a deep breath and think about it for a second… and no, I realize I don’t need anything else.

I had left behind all the unanswered questions that had been drilling into my head—how and why I made this decision, what the hell I was doing going to India alone. Questions that spanned from the present moment to the next year, touching on every upcoming event—my birthday in four days, Christmas and New Year's in two weeks, the World Cup final (which I knew Argentina would win while my country turned into the biggest party in the world), and a whole range of economic, emotional, and professional uncertainties.

After all that dark cloud of thoughts in my mind, I was finally finding a bit of light—a sun that made my eyes squint, a little bit of peace.

Warmth in my chest for my panicked soul.

I close my eyes and enjoy.

I am on my way.

(1) Hygge is a central concept in Danish culture, referring to that inner feeling of cozy comfort—the warmth and enjoyment of life’s little things. A lit candle in the winter cold, the smell of a freshly brewed cup of coffee, curling up with a blanket on the sofa, a dinner with friends, watching the snow fall—all those priceless moments of feeling at ease, feeling "at home." ↩︎