November 2023 - When distance turned into home

November didn’t begin with fireworks. It began quietly, with plans, grocery lists, and little domestic promises. I remember telling her I was going shopping to buy ramen for her, real Korean ramen, and something brutally spicy for Pablo. We laughed about tuna eggs, salmon roe, and the small misunderstandings that somehow always felt cute instead of annoying. Even before I got on the plane, November already felt different. Softer. More real.

On November 8, I was standing at Toronto airport with that familiar mix of excitement and fear. Flying across the ocean still felt unreal, even though my heart already knew where it was going.

When I landed in Spain, everything moved fast. Around four in the afternoon, I was already in the car with Raquel, jetlagged, smiling like an idiot. Half an hour later, we stopped for my first real Spanish tapa and a caña. It was simple, salty, cold, perfect. The kind of moment you don’t photograph because you want to taste it fully.

That night, around ten, we arrived in Ávila, at her parents’ summer house. The place was quiet, empty, and ours.

Just the two of us.

No messages.

No screens.

No distance.

That’s where the chats went silent, not because we had nothing to say, but because everything was finally happening in real life.

The next day she asked me what I wanted for lunch. I said nothing complicated, and somehow we ended up with poke, her favorite. It felt funny eating something so modern and international in such an old city. After that, we took the train to Madrid. It was my first European train since 2008, and I watched the landscape like a kid, feeling strangely emotional. Madrid surprised me. It was bigger, prettier, more alive than I expected. It rained, but even the rain felt cinematic.

I met Julia, one of her best friends, and Cecilia. Somewhere between walking, laughing, and trying to keep up with conversations in Spanish, I lost my wallet. Raquel had asked me to safeguard it, and of course that made me extra anxious. Everything turned out fine in the end, but in that moment I was sure I had failed my first real Spanish test. We recovered by drinking beer and wine over an authentic Spanish charcuterie board , cheese, jamón, pâté, the kind of food that makes you understand a culture immediately.

That night, we went to a bar that used to be a porn theater. The neighborhood looked dark and sketchy, and I was genuinely convinced these women were about to kidnap me and harvest my organs. They laughed endlessly at my paranoia. Somehow I survived.

The next days in Madrid blurred into beautiful routines: walking through plazas, entering random buildings, parks, museums, watching the city breathe. I tried a calamares sandwich and felt deeply disappointed, it was just fried calamari inside a bun with nothing else. I didn’t hide my feelings about it. The sky that evening, though, made up for everything, pink, blue, purple melting together like it was painted just for us.

We got incredibly lucky and managed to buy tickets to see Real Madrid play. Sandra la China is still jealous to this day because of how impossible it usually is. The stadium was wild, loud, electric. We screamed, laughed, hugged strangers. That night, Madrid felt infinite.

After more wandering, more beers, croquetas, and photos, we took the train back to Ávila. The sky on the way back was a deep autumn blue, calm and expansive. In Ávila, Rocio showed us around the city, surrounded by la muralla. I met Marcos, her baby son, who was shy at first but eventually fist-bumped me like we’d known each other forever. From Los Cuatro Postes, we looked down at the city glowing below us.

Back at home, I saw her dad’s old Volkswagen in the garage, so old it looked like something history shouldn’t have forgiven. That night, we stayed up late playing guitar, singing, Raquel showing off her skills like it was nothing. We talked seriously about us, how much we wanted this, and how hard it was with an ocean between us. We ended the night with Korean face masks, trying to look more beautiful for each other, laughing at how ridiculous we looked.

The days in Ávila were slow and intimate. Supermarkets with giant legs of jamón hanging everywhere fascinated me. We walked aimlessly, talked about everything and nothing. I cooked dinners for her. Another day, we explored the city more deeply, churches, plazas, walking on la muralla, meeting Sandra la China, and finally going for chuleton at a famous steakhouse. That night, I met her family at her winter house, the place that would later become our house. I was nervous, but they welcomed me like I belonged. I saw her past, her routines, the spaces that shaped her.

I tried real churros, plain, dipped into thick hot chocolate. Not the cinnamon-sugar lies I’d been told before. One night we stayed in, dancing, drinking, filming stupid videos, laughing until our faces hurt. Another morning, I woke up cramped because she woke me too early, only to realize she had prepared birthday presents for me. For the first time in a long time, I felt deeply celebrated.

We went to Segovia for my birthday, marveling at the aqueduct, walking through the cathedral and streets like tourists in love. That night, we dressed up and went to Sibuya, the only Japanese restaurant in Ávila, her favorite. It was okay.; very Americanized. But it wasn’t about the food. It was about us dressing up, choosing each other.

I met her Ávila friend group, Sonso, Sandra, Adri, Pablo. Burgers, club hopping, small-city nightlife. It wasn’t wild, but it was honest. Then Valladolid, where I met Natalia, Sergio, and their daughter Lucia. The city itself was dull, but the people were warm. Back in Ávila, we met Javier at a pub and spent hours gossiping.

And then suddenly, it was time to leave.

The morning of November 19 was heavy. At the airport, I bought strawberry gin at duty free just to think of her. We thanked each other for everything, for choosing each other, for loving each other, for making it feel like home. After I left, the messages came flooding in. She said the house smelled like me. That she didn’t want to wash the sheets. That she missed hugging me on the sofa. That she wanted me back already, even though it had only been hours.

In Amsterdam, I drank a beer alone and told her my hand still smelled like her. She said she lay on the bed just to breathe me in. We joked, flirted, missed each other aggressively. She told me her family asked if we were officially a couple, and she laughed like it was obvious. She told me the house was mine now too.

By the time I boarded my final flight home, my phone was full of love. Messages calling me her favorite everything. Telling me not to forget to hug my mom. Saying goodbye even though it wasn’t really goodbye.

November ended like that, not with a dramatic goodbye, not with certainty, but with something stronger.

With shared space.

With family knowing my name.

With a house that smelled like me.

With bed sheets not yet washed.

With the quiet understanding that what we had stopped being something we only talked about.

Distance came back, but so did belonging.

And somehow, both felt survivable now.