New Year’s in Paris
We rang in 2026 sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower, with a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a few sweets we’d picked up at a little local shop.
It was cold, there were people everywhere, and we’d been checking the time for a while. We were sure there’d be fireworks at midnight, but there weren’t. Midnight came and went far more quietly than we’d imagined, and for a few seconds you could feel a small wave of disappointment ripple through everyone standing there.
For us, though, that night meant a lot. We toasted to the year that was starting, to the relationship, to the trip waiting for us with the Tesla, and to all those decisions we still didn’t quite know how to name.
Four Months Earlier
None of that was part of my plan. I figured the best thing was to keep the life I already knew, without shaking things up too much.
For a long time I believed that living on the road while working meant walking away from a “serious career.” I spent more than ten years in the court system, in one of those jobs people tend to walk into and hold onto until they retire. Until I realized that security didn’t count for much if the life it was protecting no longer excited me, and that it could also come from trusting what I was capable of.
So I changed course. I started working remotely in HR, communications, and personal branding, and little by little I built a career that also let me travel for longer stretches. I wasn’t starting from zero, even if for a while it felt that way.
By late 2025 I was comfortable. I had a routine, a job I liked, and a stability that had taken real effort to build after that big change.
Still, a few wishes were quietly hanging around. The urge to travel more, to build something of my own, and, maybe, to share the road with someone kept coming back.
I’d traveled quite a bit and been through moments of solitude that had left their mark. One of them was that Christmas when I decided to explore New York on my own, an experience that ended up becoming one of the happiest moments of the year. On those trips I confirmed something I’d already sensed: that there was a part of me that felt intensely alive when I was out discovering the world.
At the same time, I felt that this time the thing to do was to stay put, to hold steady, to not upend what I’d already built. But I was also starting to wonder how much longer I could stay there without feeling like I was leaving something unfinished.
I knew you could change your life without erasing everything that came before, but I also knew how much it cost. I wasn’t saying it out loud yet, though I was beginning to suspect that my new idea of stability might just be another way of standing still.
And someone I’d only just met seemed to see it clearly before I did.
The First Date with Gonzalo
It was during those months that I met Gonzalo. We met up in Palermo, wine on the table, on a first date without much in the way of expectations. One of those where two people sit across from each other, talk about their lives, and size each other up a little, trying to figure out whether they have anything in common and any interest in meeting again.
In the middle of the conversation, completely matter-of-fact, Gonzalo said: “You’re going to start your own thing.” I went quiet for a moment. It wasn’t just what he said, but how calmly he said it. He didn’t yet know all my fears, my detours, or the reasons I kept finding to put it off. Even so, he said it like he was pointing out something obvious.
I recognized myself in his words right away. I knew I wanted to do it, but I’d been circling the idea, and the doubts, for so long that I’d started to see it as something far off. From that night on, it got a little harder to keep pretending that what I wanted could wait forever.
I didn’t make some big decision the next day or transform my life overnight. Gonzalo was in my corner from the start, while I tried to work out what shape all of it could take. Back then, the point wasn’t knowing exactly how to do it. It was starting to admit that I really wanted to.
If I had to name what I liked most about him that night, I’d probably pick the least obvious thing: he asked really good questions.
I found myself talking about myself with an ease I hadn’t felt in a long time. He didn’t seem to be asking just out of curiosity, or while waiting for his turn to talk. He paid attention to the answers and wanted to understand what was behind them.
Over time I understood that this was part of what made me feel so at ease with him. He remembered what I said, took an interest in the things I couldn’t quite put into words, and didn’t try to finish my story before he knew it.
The Dates Kept Coming
There were dinners, nights at the theater, and conversations that always ran longer than planned. Sometimes Gonzalo would come over for a bit, and by the time we looked at the clock, it was already too late to keep pretending he’d only stopped by for a minute.
That’s how we got to know each other, almost without noticing. In the hours that slipped away, in the questions that led to other questions, and in that slightly disorienting trust that shows up before you can explain where it came from.
The little habits started showing up too. How each of us organized the day, how much quiet we needed, the things we did without thinking, and the ones that could quietly get on the other’s nerves.
There was never a single conversation where we decided we were building something. There were dinners that stretched out, plans that started to be taken for granted, and plenty of nights when neither of us seemed in any hurry to say goodbye.
At that point we still didn’t know I was going to start my own thing. We also didn’t know that, while we talked about projects, trips, and other ways of living, we were beginning to make room for each other in our lives.
We simply started counting on each other.
Gonzalo Was Leaving for Thailand
When I met Gonzalo, he already had tickets to fly to Thailand in November. He wanted to see Asia, and it was a trip he’d planned before I ever came along.
I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but I remember what I told him: “If you leave now, we won’t have time to get to know each other.” I didn’t say it to get him to cancel the trip, or as a test to see what he’d do. We’d known each other for such a short time, and I wasn’t sure myself what could happen between us.
I just felt that if he left right then, something that had barely begun might end before we got the chance to find out what it was.
In one of our conversations, Gonzalo told me he wanted to keep getting to know me. He knew it could go well or badly, but he wanted to give himself the chance to find out.
The trip got put on hold, and we kept seeing each other that month. Some time later, one night at home, I asked him: “What if we spent New Year’s somewhere else?”
The question came out almost like a game. We started daydreaming about places to go. We were still getting to know each other, but we were already talking about traveling as if that version of us had existed all along.
That’s how Paris came up.
Traveling Together
I loved the idea, though it also made my stomach drop a little. Going out to dinner, heading to the theater, or spending nights talking until it got late was one thing. Packing a suitcase and finding out how we’d get along far from our routines, with no home of our own to retreat to after an argument and not much room to hide each other’s quirks, was another.
But we went.
Traveling together was also a pretty fast way to get to know each other. Within a few days came the tiredness, the small decisions, the waiting, and those habits that during a date can still be kept discreetly in check. There wasn’t much time to put together a friendlier version of ourselves.
Paris was lit up for Christmas, it was cold, and the streets were packed. We walked a lot, ducked into cafés to warm up, and kept talking about trips, projects, and how we’d like to live if we didn’t have to do it exactly the way we were supposed to.
We toasted to what had begun.
And to everything we still don’t know how it turns out.
