The Week Everything Broke Before the Trip
I’ve tried to write this piece at least a dozen times—if getting sidetracked by a dusty shelf I never use, a WhatsApp group chat about full-moon meditations I will never attend, and a random YouTube commentary about a celebrity I don’t even follow counts as trying. I wasn’t avoiding the writing. I sat down. I meant business. I did the whole ritual: laptop open, serious face, “today I’m a writer” posture. And still, without fail, my brain kept slipping away like a child who pretends to go to bed and then quietly rebuilds a Lego city at 2 a.m.
Now, finally, I’m here. Fingers on keys, sparkling water fizz still tickling my throat, trying to pin these words down before another half-meaningful distraction sneaks in through the back door of my attention and turns my day into confetti again.
Coming back to Dubai wasn’t a transition so much as a headfirst dive into a to-do list someone had scribbled in the dark with their non-dominant hand. First order of business: the still-missing security deposit. The landlord—a man fluent in bank transfers and avoidance—had already made himself scarce, replying to messages like they cost him oxygen. Naturally, he passed the torch to his chosen real estate agent, a woman who treated follow-up the way some people treat flossing: technically advisable, emotionally optional.
At first, she didn’t fully disappear. She gave me the drip-feed of empty “I’ll check” replies, each one as useful as a chocolate teapot. Then came the vanishing act. By the time she ghosted completely, I was already neck-deep in unfinished tasks and running on that thin, brittle kind of energy that makes you both productive and one bad email away from crying in a Carrefour aisle. So I looped back to the landlord and spelled it out: either he gets involved, or I loop in RERA and we’ll see how expensive “avoidance” becomes when it’s legally itemised.
To his credit—or out of fear, which in Dubai is often the same thing—I finally saw movement. Slow. Reluctant. Still annoying. But enough to stop me from going full Karen in public. For now.
While I was chasing my own money just to keep a roof over my head, I was also clocking in—twice. Two jobs, both still in their awkward toddler phase: crawling when I need them to sprint, paying in vague promises, polite emojis, and just enough to keep my phone from being disconnected. I nodded. I smiled. I over-delivered. Because I keep telling myself maybe this is what building looks like. Maybe one day I’ll be the one calling the shots, choosing which projects to take and which messages to ignore, instead of grinding in circles with a “professional tone” while my soul drags behind me in slippers. I wanted freedom. Not the aesthetic version. The real one. The kind that lets you breathe without earning permission.
The last straw is always hard to identify because it arrives disguised as “just one more thing.” Maybe it was the client from Job #1 who made me race around town for the perfect ready unit—urgent, non-negotiable—then vanished the second I delivered. No thanks. No reply. Not even a thumbs-down emoji. Or maybe it was Job #2, where my boss gaslit me about a “new website” supposedly up and running while I stared at the same prehistoric version as always. He wouldn’t send a screenshot. He just kept repeating that on his screen it looked different. As if I was hallucinating. As if I had time to play tech support on top of everything else.
That’s where something in me slumped. Not dramatically. Not in a cinematic breakdown. More like a slow, quiet exhale. A surrender that didn’t ask for attention. And my brain—loyal in its escapism—slid straight to the only place that had felt good in months.
The holiday.
The one Mo and I fought over and planned anyway.
The one I poured my energy into—routes, bookings, backup plans like I was building a bunker.
The one that changed our lives.
Let me start there.
Blueprints and Meltdowns
Mo and I started planning this trip about six months before it happened, and naturally it came seasoned with drama—misunderstandings, arguments, the whole performance. Two headstrong people with wildly different communication styles trying to map out a joint European escape without accidentally killing each other in the process.
I told him what I needed with the clarity of someone who was running out of patience for her own burnout: nature, stillness, somewhere the nervous system could unclench. I needed a landscape that didn’t demand anything from me. I needed water and trees and the feeling that life could be simple again. He nodded—understanding, or pretending to—and a few days later he dropped his dream lineup like a man announcing a world tour: Monaco. Paris. Amsterdam. Barcelona. Ibiza.
Ibiza.
The one place he remembered fondly from his last boys’ trip, and the same one I went to when I was seventeen and foolish. I’m thirty-one now, allergic to overpriced cocktails and forced euphoria. I didn’t want escapism. I wanted quiet. And his suggestion—tone-deaf and soaked in déjà vu—landed like a small erasure. It made me feel like he hadn’t heard me at all, like I’d spoken and he’d translated it into something else more convenient for him.
We fought. In circles. In loops. Raised voices and lowered hopes. But eventually we reached an agreement that made sense because it leaned into our natural roles: I would be the Chief Architect of the Adventure. The planner. The booking agent. The logistical mastermind. And so I did what I do when handed control and left unsupervised—I orchestrated the whole thing. Itinerary. Transport. Activities. Flights. Currency exchange plan so we wouldn’t get robbed by airport rates. All of it. Over-functioning as love language.
Then came the airline hiccup—one cancelled flight and suddenly I’m playing UN peace negotiator between logic and Mo’s meltdown. He wanted to rework the entire itinerary from scratch, like one disruption meant the universe was rejecting us. I begged him to breathe and let me work. And somehow—miraculously—I pulled off a refund on a non-refundable fare. People hate a Karen until they need one. Didn’t I already tell you I’m that Karen? You’re welcome.
But the truth is, this wasn’t just a holiday. It was a litmus test. And the only times I’d felt that specific static before a departure were the nights before I left for the U.S. and China—the same sensation of stepping off a ledge, the same “this will change you whether you want it to or not” pulse.
I was twenty the first time. Italy had become suffocating—depression, self-sabotage, substances used like Band-Aids, and my mom’s live-in boyfriend, a walking red flag who emptied her savings and tanked her business before vanishing. I hated the apartment. Hated the air. Hated myself. When my friends left after a clumsy farewell dinner, I sat on the couch in silence with my dog curled on my lap like he knew I wasn’t coming back. The plan was a waitressing job in the U.S., arranged via Facebook chat with a restaurant owner I’d never met.
It wasn’t a job. It was an escape. And the escape nearly broke me. I landed in a place full of people just as lost as I was—except meaner. Those seven months felt like a fever dream of exploitation and blurred morals, and then came the moment I tried to re-enter the country after a brief trip home: searched, interrogated, accused of working illegally without proof. Handcuffed. Detained. Deported. I remember being paraded through Miami Airport like I had smuggled something far more dangerous than heartbreak. They gave me my passport back only once the plane was mid-air, as if to make sure I couldn’t argue with gravity.
A few months later I said yes to China. Different continent. Different currency. Same ache in the chest. I boarded the plane with hope on my face and dread in my stomach. It wasn’t bravery. It was desperation wearing a nicer outfit.
This trip with Mo didn’t come from that same darkness. But it carried a familiar echo: the need for clarity. Could I trust this? Could I trust him? Could we exist outside our daily scaffolding—no distractions, no crutches, no buffers—and still choose each other? Could he see the jagged edges and not flinch?
Two weeks. One campervan. One chance to find out.
Light Luggage, Lighter Heart
And then it happened. Months of stress and anxiety made space for reality—the one that had fuelled me through the headaches and the breakdown-adjacent weeks. When I landed in Italy five days before Mo, I swear I could breathe again, like I’d locked all the Dubai noise inside my shoebox studio and left it there, padlocked. I was carrying both our luggage—stuffing every corner of a heavy suitcase with his clothes and mine to save a few dirhams on checked bags—but honestly, it felt light. Feather-light. I wasn’t dragging myself across airports; I was floating on anticipation.
There were things to do, of course: check-ups to squeeze in, my mom’s campervan to prep for the road, favours to run, friends and family to catch up with in a rushed montage, plus the usual backseat family politics that come free with Italian life. And still, through all of it, I felt serenely at peace, like I’d stepped into a warm stream and let it carry me.
Mo was present even through the screen, grounding me from far away. We were apart for those five days, but his voice was there, checking in, keeping me steady. When he landed in Barcelona for his quick solo layover before meeting me in Italy, he didn’t exactly fall in love with the city. He found it… meh. Mo is a people person. He thrives in company, in shared jokes, in spontaneous plans. Solo adventures for him are like watching a comedy alone—possible, but pointless. He wandered around unimpressed and underwhelmed, waiting for the part of the trip that mattered. Me. (Or at least that’s what I like to tell myself, and I’ll keep telling myself until proven otherwise.)
I, on the other hand, adore solo time. I used to live on it—quiet Sundays filled with books, playlists, long walks, food made exactly the way I like it. I don’t fear being alone; I need it. Mo doesn’t. He treats solitude like a glitch. He visits family, calls friends, stays in orbit around someone the way some people stay in orbit around caffeine.
Then, finally, he landed in Bergamo—don’t get me started on how they call it Milan-Bergamo, as if we’re just a Milan side hustle; no, we are a whole province with our own soul, thank you. I saw him at arrivals and my brain stalled for a second. He was there. In my land. In the place that shaped me. None of the men I’d dated since leaving Italy had ever crossed its border for me. And there he was—Mo—luggage in hand, heart on sleeve, ready.
My mom and her friend offered to drive us. We picked him up and stopped at a local bar, the kind that still knows how to do breakfast properly: cappuccino with milk so fresh you can practically hear the cow’s sigh, cornetti filled with tangy homemade berry jam. Mo isn’t a sweet-in-the-morning person. Dessert doesn’t excite him, especially at breakfast. And yet, something about that flaky pastry and bold espresso and creamy foam won him over. Italy has a quiet way of converting people.
Back at my mom’s friend’s place, the campervan was waiting like an obedient beast. We brewed another coffee, packed the last items, loaded everything. In the garage: the Vespa I bought at fifteen, my dumbbells, and the little necessities that make travel feel like life instead of survival. Fridge stocked. Pantry full. Tank filled. We were ready.
Mo insisted on driving because he associates driving with masculinity, and I let him because I’m occasionally brave in a way that borders on irresponsible. He had zero experience with manual vehicles. Even less with a bulky campervan. So I held my breath and prayed my way through the first five kilometres, winding through medieval alleyways barely wide enough for a wheelbarrow, let alone our mechanical beast. A Syrian man raised on Dubai highways was now navigating northern Italian goat paths. The anxiety was… alive.
Still, he did it. He got us through Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia smooth and fast, and close to the Slovenian border I took the wheel. The fuel must’ve been dodgy because it barely got us 350 km, but Slovenia had cheaper prices, so we refilled and aimed for Predjama Castle.
Two Helmets, One Vespa
We reached the village just before golden hour and parked the campervan in a quiet spot I found through my usual digital tricks—no roadside drama, no overpriced tourist traps. We stretched, shuffled bags, and switched rides. Out came the Vespa, the one that had passed from cousin to cousin like a legacy of teenage rebellion and summer errands, now somehow ours for the week.
We zipped through the Slovenian countryside like characters in an old road movie: one helmet slightly crooked, the other too tight, wind messing with our hair and minds in all the right ways. The landscape rolled out with soft hills and hay bales, forests in every shade of green, crooked wooden fences, a breeze that tasted faintly of farms and wild thyme. Even the cows looked photogenic, like they’d been hired by the tourism board.
And then Predjama Castle appeared—not standing, but rising, as if the mountain itself had decided to become a palace. Built into the cliffside, it blended into the limestone with eerie perfection, less like a construction project and more like an ancient creature that had always been there. A fortress with secrets, watching over the valley with the calm confidence of something that has survived every era of human drama.
We’d dropped close to €90 on a combo ticket for the castle and Postojna caves, and I hadn’t clocked they weren’t actually side by side—a rookie mistake. By the time we finished wandering towers and dungeons, we couldn’t reach the cave tour without staying the night nearby. Not in the plan. Not in the budget. My frugal side took the hit with stiff dignity, even if it stung like throwing money off a cliff. I sulked for a minute, then let it go. Slovenia was already giving me enough.
On the ride back, the same winding road looked softer now, the sun low enough to paint everything in honey and flame. Somewhere on a quiet stretch of gravel we spotted two curious horses behind a crooked fence. Mo pulled over. We approached slowly. They came right up to us, soft muzzles warm and damp, eyes the colour of melted chocolate. We fed them grass and wildflowers, our palms tickled by velvet mouths, and I felt that ridiculous cinematic ache—the one that makes you want to cry for no logical reason other than this is too good and I don’t want it to end.
But back at the campervan, a small disaster was waiting.
Getting the Vespa out had been easy. Getting it back in was a different story. Mo, brimming with confidence, thought it was a brilliant idea to accelerate it up the narrow ramp. I stood inside the garage ready to receive it like a trusting fool—until the Vespa launched forward like a rocket and nearly took me out. My scream must’ve bounced off every cliff in Slovenia. I don’t know what was louder: the tires, my panic, or Mo’s laugh once he realised I was fine, echoing through the late evening air like the world’s least romantic soundtrack.
After a cooling shower we ate dinner: a cold rice salad my mom had packed before we left, a classic from the early 2000s—chilled rice, oil, tuna, pickled vegetables—practical maternal love disguised as a meal. That first bite cracked open a memory I didn’t expect: summer evenings on the balcony, my dad’s sandals dragging on the tile, mosquitoes buzzing, the sun turning the marble floor amber. And now here I was, decades later, spooning it in my mouth inside a campervan across the border, with the man I loved watching me like I was the main course. I had to blink hard to keep the moment from spilling out of me.
Water tank refilled. Bellies full. Limbs loose. We pointed the wheels toward Ljubljana.
An hour later we arrived in an industrial corner of the capital—nothing fancy, just a patch of pavement near a warehouse. But it was quiet, safe enough to sleep, and we curled into each other like puzzle pieces and let the day dissolve.
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