Leaving on a jet plane. Last time this year

His nose is buried in my hair, breathing along my neckline as we’re flying together for the first time. There are moments when I am not afraid.

Having spent four hours waiting for the alarm to go off, we are trying to go about our morning routine before going downstairs to wait for the pre-ordered taxi, which is running late.

Is this really happening? Am I really going? Is he really coming with me? I am wondering, unable to relax and my stomach feels like an over-inflated balloon and my thighs are rock hard, while my fingers cannot stop running through my messy morning hair.

It is my third time to Stockholm this year. I started 2016 there, then I went back for two weeks in the summer and here I go again. This time with an extra possibility and an extra load.

“Look, this is the last sunrise this year, look how beautiful it is, look at the cloud blanket, look at the snow”, I tell my travel companion and he abandons sleep for a while to join in my happiness manifestations.

My seat is near the wing and as my eyes are sliding along the lines and arrows and bolts, my thoughts are wondering about the complexity of the construction that a human being is, with all our contradictions and all the changes we are constantly going through.

Later on, he returns to his book about freedom, leaving me to look at the vastness of the sky in the last hours of a beautiful and challenging year.