The two girls I have in front of me are the ones who are the most well-behaved in the entire group of third graders in Primary school who are now surrounding me. They were the first to sit down, further away from the rest, as soon as they entered the carriage. They remain oblivious to what is happening in the background, to their classmates, who are jumping, shouting and fighting to get into the photo the teacher is taking of them. Occupying the minimum space of their seat and with their legs crossed, they hardly move, nor is their voice heard during the subway ride. But those of us who grew up with the phrase “You, look and be quiet” recognize each other. I look at them and they are quiet. I don't need words to discover their universe, hidden behind the mobile phone screen.

“I don’t have a free weekend until August”. You will have heard it or said it yourselves, as if a packed calendar were synonymous with good social and work health. We stuff ourselves with tasks and plans, myself included. And they reproach us for being too weak, for being victims of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), for being afraid of missing something, for seeming like we don’t know how to be alone, still, at home. How easy and reductive the world becomes when we have an acronym to define us. That’s it: we have FOMO, as quick and simple as saying it. Do we really only need four letters to crystallize the feeling of a whole generation?

There are weekswhen I ask ChatGPT why it's possible that I can't stop crying and if I should worry about it. And there are weeks when I listen to the dirtiest reggaeton on repeat, so confident that I see myself capable of posting a selfie in the bathroom mirror. But at no time am I aware that this feeling is the product of my hormones. Every month I feel cheated by myself: another time, I surprise myself, as if this same process had not repeated for almost 20 years. That's why, and for when I feel I can't trust myself, I have monitored what happens to my body and my mind in the 28 days of my menstrual cycle, according to my mobile app.

We met at a party. When Tito’s was still Tito’s (which makes me feel very old). It all started as good love stories begin: with two glances that met in the middle of the room. “What’s your name?”, “What are you studying?” and a kiss as a promise that I would look for him again. And I did. Some supernatural force wanted me to end up finding him on Facebook (which also makes me feel very old), just from the two questions I asked him.

The only daughter is having her birthday: one, specifically. And, with only a few days difference, my mother too. She's turning 55. I like that I fell into this coincidence, because it reminds me more than ever that without a unique mother there would have been no only daughter. I started writing more inwardly and less outwardly when I discovered that the world could be explained through the stories we keep within ourselves. And the story with my mother is one of them. The first one, I'd say. And perhaps, one day, it will also be the last. Because it's a story that never ends.

There was a time when I loved my grandmother very much. And then, a time when I didn't, when I felt I had stopped loving her.

I like to hear the knife sharpener. I feel pleasure watching the pleasant women and the pleasant men selling black artichokes or borage cabbage. When I detect a sign with eighties typography that says ‘Bar Centro’ or ‘Bar Sport’, I stop to observe the hustle and bustle. But my knives are all from Ikea. I do all my shopping at the supermarket (fresh produce included). And it's very difficult for me to drink a coffee that is torrefied and without oat milk. I am a hypocrite.

I am stretched out, on the beach, half reading, half looking around me, catching other stories in passing. A mother emerges from among the beach umbrellas, almost crawling on the sand, struggling to reach the front line, laden with everything. She is accompanied by her twins. It's not entirely clear who is dragging whom. But she lies down, defeated, on the towel, which she hasn't even bothered to straighten when she took it out of the bag. She hasn't taken off her clothes either. And I can see her bikini through her white, Ibizan-style blouse. She's also wearing some denim shorts that she has no intention of taking off. And some black XXL sunglasses, where the expression I'd like to decipher is hidden. The twins don't move much from her side. They lie around her, adoring her, like in a Sorolla painting. They touch her hair, resting their little heads on different parts of their mother's body, also looking at the sea, in silence. After a period of rest, the two girls start to stir and liven up. They put on their swimsuits and go for a swim. The mother shows no sign of movement, let alone concern. The fact that she doesn't feel any unease seeing her six or seven-year-old daughters go to the sea alone makes me think she has already saved them from something much more dangerous. Whatever it is, it has devastated her. I feel like I am witnessing the conclusion of a crusade, as if this moment were the last chapter of a long story, the scene just before the final credits.

I don't need to make a list of 'things I'm grateful for today' to know what are the three or four things that matter to me, that make me happy. What would be the point of being grateful for them if, to be aware of them, I had to do journaling? I'd be pretty screwed. I wouldn't want to write them down either. When you write, it's as if you unburden yourself a bit of things, as if you release yourself from them. Why would I do it? Putting it in writing would be to distance myself a bit, to place them on a surface and materialize them, to see them outside of myself, to excise them from myself. And I already do that enough.

I find remnants in my home of things that are half-finished. Small daily failures. The leggings and the running top that have been hanging in the bathroom for two weeks, optimistic. The vinegar and the rice paper wrappers I bought at the Japanese week at Lidl, convinced I would make Goi Cuon, fresh Vietnamese rolls. The three books started on the bedside table. The analog camera that I proposed to myself – once a month – to learn to use once and for all. A table, which was more than a table, it was an investment to do a lot of work on and earn a lot of money. Versions of myself that I can't decide on. I want to be all of them at once out of cowardice, because I don't believe enough in any of them.

I am fascinated by symbols: minimal units of communication, which mean very specific things with very few resources. Language concentrates in them, acidic, explosive. My senses react to them like taste buds to monosodium glutamate. Pure stimulus. They are a mystery and our collective imaginary, the ultraviolet light that allows us to decipher them. Recognizing their meaning is addictive because it speaks to me of myself, reminds me of things I didn't know I knew and that help me interpret the world.

Marc comes to my 'functional' training class. At some point, 'functional' became a word to refer to a type of physical exercise and we all accepted it. It sounds strange to me. 'Functional' sounds to me like 'the minimum you can do to get by in life'. I'd like to know why it is, functional. Does it make you functional? I understand it does, that you get strong to be functional as a human being. Which is the reason I signed up for it. To have some strength, in the future, to be autonomous, control my sphincters and not defecate on myself after giving birth (if I ever do), for example, or to be able to carry milk cartons and not need the help of these children I will have given birth to. I don't know. I don't know why I think about it in terms of motherhood. The thing is, if I don't do anything about it, my musculature will start to detach more and more from my bones, until it becomes totally dysfunctional. Now I see it that way, in practical terms. But for a long time it wasn't like that: it was in aesthetic terms that I thought about it. And I feel sorry that Marc ends up experiencing the same thing.

Neus Canyelles said at the presentation of her latest book that she always carries a notebook with her to write down things that happen to her and then turn them into literature, as she does in Waiting roomsa. She didn't exactly say this herself, and I was surprised by her measured approach, her precise and well-proportioned words. Because she can say that she writes as if she were being "dictated" without sounding presumptuous. She can say that she can't explain how easy writing is for her, the complete lack of effort it requires, without seeming pretentious. You read her and, suddenly, you understand.

My friends don't know this, but sometimes I have an internal competition to see who has the better relationship. It's my secret vice, frivolously analyzing where my boyfriend and I are better and where we're worse, compared to everyone else. I'd like to say it's my way of taking the pulse of my relationship, of knowing what works and what doesn'tAlthough it really seems more like a reflex, an involuntary tic driven by the need for immediate gratification. A form of entertainment. And I'm sure we're not alone. Comparing ourselves is one of the things that makes us most human. Nothing makes us as fragile and rational as believing ourselves to be better or worse than someone else. We constitute ourselves in this exercise, in relation to others. Otherness ultimately defines us. That's why we need to understand it thoroughly.

We've had enough. Enough of this. clean look, with highlights baby lights, of traditional wivesFrom a return to mysticism and contemplation, to beige and the white Cloud Dancer. Enough of this nonsense. lattas, of bar, of playlists Pop Pilates Princess. Enough of that conservative stench that permeates everything and spreads like an odorless gas, slowly lulling us to sleep. Enough of this evangelization of good manners, of introspection, of the healthy routinesSilent and hangover-free.

The bus makes a sweeping turn of almost 180 degrees, and, as if showing it to me, offers a panoramic view of a vast open area filled with piles of earth, scrap metal, and machinery. This entire scene unexpectedly bursts into my gaze, lost in thought as I stare out the window. Is this the airport construction?I ask myself, elusive. I wish I hadn't asked myself this question. I don't want to know the answer. A pang of anguish shoots into the pit of my stomach. I try to look away, but the vehicle keeps circling, between merges and roundabouts, and there's no horizon to take refuge in. Everywhere I look, I see only powerlessness, unease, a legacy: a terminal that—if you'll excuse me—never ends; commercial planes, private planes, planes every minute; an army of neatly lined taxis; trolleysNorth Face suitcases, very tall people.

In general, there are two groups of people: those with whom we can simply be, and those with whom we necessarily have to do something. If you don't believe me, take a quick look at your friends and family (or even partners). The people with whom we always have to do something are those with whom—intentionally or not—we make plans, those with whom we always have something to do, making them feel somewhat incomplete. I have nothing against a friend who goes for a run, a friend who goes to the movies, or a parent who finds a shared hobby with their children to spend time together. But allow me to doubt that these are the people who truly know us.

Ever since enjoying routine became a privilege, they've made us hate it. "Back to routine": always negative, laden with regret. They've commercialized routine in favor of various gurus who promise to "say goodbye to it," as if solving a problem we didn't even know we had. Against routine, they've glorified the life of the digital nomad, the expat, working from the beach, weekend getaways. And, little by little, they've stripped it of its sacredness, its customary rituals, its everyday life, what happens to us all, the only things that unite us and make us equal: the coffee at the bar, the public transport card, the shopping cart. Routine is what makes us human, it's what makes us good people for a while. There's a touch of classism in the hatred of routine, in the resistance to being like a character from Tell me how it happenedThat is, a person who could be any one of us, interchangeable. There's a sense of superiority, of believing oneself less mortal than the rest, oblivious to the forces of nature.

There are many reasons why I admire my cousinDespite being four years younger than me, I feel it would be incredibly difficult to teach her anything. I'd be mortified to have to teach that amazing woman anything. At 26, she has the same survival instinct as a single, divorced mother of four. She seems to have been born with half her life already lived, as if adulthood arrived at 18. "It's a miracle I turned out so well," she always tells me, with that dark humor that came with her Brazilian leg. And it's true. I'd like to say I'd defend her against anything and anyone, but the truth is, she's never given me the chance. She's smart, quick-witted, and vibrant. Her life is like a "Mexican soap opera"—she also says—but she outruns the misfortunes. Perhaps that's why she's been blessed with a very small bust, but also with a sharp eye and a protective mind, which lead almost everyone to mistake her for something she's not and—quickly—realize it. In fact, my favorite photo in the world is one where we appear side by side – me, at 10 years old, and her, at 6 – with such a disproportionate level of physical development that next to her, I look like a giant, about to crush a dwarf.

Every week, when I sit down to write this section, I do so with the latest article still fresh, recently published. I share it, and my personal torture begins. We are healthy children of the internet and social media, so I can't help but measure my effort by clicks, messages, likesShares. I analyze my work through the eyes of others. And I make an effort to ensure this doesn't stifle my writing; that it doesn't dictate the rhythm of the keys in the next installment. I write each new article as if it should be the last. Every week, I start with a clean slate. And yet, I survive another week. Without remembering that the previous week was exactly the same.