I would love to tell you that I am one of them, one of those assertive people who say what they think and make their voice heard. I am not. I am one of those who, in the face of a conflict or a slight threat, shrinks. Mind you, a few hours later I win all the dialectical arguments in the shower. You should see me: I am quick, with sharp arguments, and I make my point of view known. I can even afford the luxury of using irony, all while elevating my position over my adversary. In the shower. Alone. Very sad, all of it. Therefore, when I confront someone, you can be sure that it must have been something serious. And that is, precisely, what happened to me this summer.To put you in context, we have spent a few weeks on vacation in the north of Mallorca, near the area where my grandparents were from and where I used to spend my summers as a child. My new routine has consisted of waiting to see the sunrise (an advantage of a child who doesn't sleep), going to the beach at 9:00, and returning at 11:00. And, involuntarily, becoming a sort of 'topless' Captain Planet. They say it: not all heroes wear capes; some don't even wear the top part of their swimsuit. And if there is one thing I cannot understand and that I handle worse every year, it is the issue of public showers at the beach. I can understand showering, rinsing off the seaweed —so much, so very much, that we've had this summer and that has gifted us empty beaches in the middle of August—, but not staying in the shower for more than a minute. If it were up to me, the button should give you an electric shock if you touch it more than once; like a Mediterranean version of The Hunger Games. You came to the beach: whether you like it or not, you will take home some grains of sand between your toes. Spoiler: wetting your flip-flops will only make the situation worse, as now you are a sponge with legs. If my huffs and grumbles haven't bothered you, along with a baby in my arms looking at you just as badly as I am, I don't know what will. My tactic is simple: I wait patiently for a shower turn —two, because I feel generous—, I start shifting my weight from one foot to the other, exhaling louder and louder through my nose. And then I go straight into action and explain in English that we have no water in Mallorca and that we should be finishing up... Most people are surprised; some act as if it has nothing to do with them, and others get confrontational. I would love to think that they are equally bothered by: the grains of sand and the crazy woman who goes topless who speaks to them in three languages so they can choose which one they want to be offended in.

After a reservation made at a small hotel in Fornalutx 13 months ago, an hour in the car searching for parking, and a walk I can only describe as a trek through hell, I managed to see the eclipse. This is where I could make a dramatic pause and write that thing about ‘expectations vs. reality’. My experience with the eclipse could be summarized in a series of items, but, above all, in the fact that the eclipse stinks. More than the astronomical phenomenon itself, the people. And if one is heavily pregnant with an overdeveloped sense of smell, the result of walking among hundreds of sweaty people, facing a two-kilometer uphill walk to reach the Picada tower in Sóller is ‘interesting’, to say the least. There are goats from the Serra that smell less than the people coming and going, their elbows dripping and with often pathetically chosen outfits.

I would love to be one of those visionary people who coin new words that become so popular they even have their own verbal conjugations. Thinking about how many articles have been written about having FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) for its English acronym, or what means the same, that fear of missing something – wanting to be in the broth and the bits? – and I think I need a new word to define how I feel this summer. According to the consulted sources, that is, the internet, the thing would be between GOMO (Greed Of Missing Out) and ROMO (Reluctance On Missing Out); on the one hand, wanting to be everywhere, but at the same time not worrying too much about missing things. A week ago I ran out of my mobile phone and for five days I didn't go on social media, nor did I send messages until I got home and sat in front of the computer, as if it were 1999 and I had left Messenger connected. Now that I have revealed my age and my inclination to use Anglicisms, I can also share that I wish I had got my phone back a week later, because then I wouldn't have seen what absolutely everyone – except me – seems to be at a festival, seeing my favorite artists. Poorly recorded videos of shaky zooms, photos with aesthetic aspirations of a dripping beer, hugs, bracelets and the feeling again that everyone was there except me. Yes, I know that's not true, but forty Instagram stories will make you believe it. I'm not there, because this is my second summer as a mother and, what's more, I'm expecting my second and walking two steps in this suffocating heat makes me more anxious than missing Florence + The Machine's set at MadCool. Now I've swapped my festival summers for afternoons by the village pool, bike rides at 07.00, reading stories and making homemade ice cream with watermelon, mango and Greek yogurt. My Instagram is a combination of baby-led weaning recipes and people living in an Estrella Damm advertisement.And it's okay. Because I've also lived through all of this. In fact, I am metaphorically crying in this first column now, because hormones have granted me the superpower of being honest with all the strangers who read this column, but, in reality, this choice is mine and a couple of weeks ago I was at a concert and soon I'll be at a festival, even if it's a thousandth of what I used to do. Hence my need to create a new acronym that defines that I want to be in the broth and in the cuts, but that I am also more comfortable than ever in my new skin, aware that this moment is my cardinal point where I had to be.This dichotomy doesn't just apply to not being at festivals, but it goes a little further; the right measure to distress me from time to time. To this new identity, added to the many others I have built over thirty-something years, I now add that of being a mother. Besides, you want to be one of those present mothers, who makes healthy meals of all the colors of the Pantone palette, who has wooden Montessori toys, who plans weekends with activities that enrich the life of the child and the whole family, and one who doesn't lose her head when almost nothing she had planned goes as she thought. But you don't want this new identity to occupy all the space of your being; as if Venom wanted to take absolute control over Eddie Brock. Curiously, this Marvel character is also a reporter, so all of a sudden I look at him as if he perfectly understood the fragility of this alien-person/child-mother symbiosis. Because, beyond concerts, there is something that also beats in this invisible space, and that is time – and quality time – to dedicate to doing the things that define who you are. I am a journalist. And even though I write infinitely less than I would like, I will always introduce myself as such. Writing has been part of my identity since I can remember. This is a double-edged sword, because at the same time it frustrates me when I see all the concerts I covered, the pace of interviews I did, and the three projects I used to juggle at once. Perhaps this summer — and surely the next and the next — I will attend many fewer festivals than I would like and, instead, I will have learned a handful of cool recipes made with broccoli and zucchini. And I am aware of it. Perhaps I will never write as much as I used to. Or maybe I will. Sitting with my laptop on the sofa, taking advantage of the duration of a summer nap and before heading to the village pool, I take this moment of honesty and vindication of all my personalities to introduce myself. Because, beyond all the women I am, I will always be a journalist woman.