Ten Rules (Plus One) for Surviving a Sunday

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember—since I was in school, back when I was a teenager living in Tandil, a small city in Buenos Aires Province.

I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider wherever I’ve been: cities, schools, sports clubs, teams, groups of friends, universities, countries. The feeling was always the same—I belonged, but not quite. That strange emotional limbo of What am I doing here? Of Yes… but no.
Writing became the way I grounded the suffocation that feeling brought with it.
I have a vivid, almost tactile memory of the notebook where I used to write that melange of poetry and essays during my university years in La Plata. Every time I think about that hard-cover spiral notebook, I secretly hope Sofi—my best friend Nati’s friend from college—still has it somewhere.

My struggle with Sundays has never really come as a surprise to me. At every stage of my life they’ve found new ways to challenge me, always dressed up in different circumstances.

I remember an old Argentine TV commercial that proposed adding a day called Osvaldo, squeezed between Sunday and Monday. I honestly can’t remember what they were advertising, but I remember how the idea made me feel: hopeful that maybe this strange Sunday heaviness could finally be cured… while also wondering whether poor Osvaldo would simply inherit it instead.

My theory back then—and still today—is that there’s something almost quantum about Sundays. Something collective. A kind of shared emptiness we all tap into without meaning to. It echoes across cities and countries, amplifying itself until it feels as though someone assigned that emotional frequency to Sundays a very long time ago. Which, unfortunately, makes it everyone’s problem.

Anyway.
I wrote this humble survival guide on a Sunday in June 2023, in Valencia. I’d moved there just two weeks earlier—and «settled» would have been a generous way to put it.
Truth is, I hadn’t planned on ending up there at all. Quite the opposite. My plan had been to move somewhere between Cantabria and Asturias, surrounded by impossibly green fields and dramatic sea cliffs. Instead, there I was: in a region that was suffocatingly hot, humid, and relentlessly warm (the redundancy is absolutely intentional), with burnt-orange soil and almost zero chance of rain.
The lack of rain wasn’t exactly comforting. I’ve never done well with excessive heat.

I didn’t have a job yet. Thankfully, I’d saved enough money to survive my first month while looking for one—what I hadn’t accounted for was the awkward in-between month that would leave me completely sin un mango¹.
I knew exactly two people in the entire city. I was almost desperately waiting for my friend Cata to arrive so we could share a mate² while I unloaded all my uncertainty—or simply grab a birra in the late afternoon.
Meanwhile, I was renting a room in an apartment where I couldn’t even open the window during the day because the traffic noise from the avenue was unbearable.

Between long walks under the blazing sun from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., dropping off résumés at specialty coffee shops where I imagined myself working—while conveniently leaving out the fact that I had absolutely no idea how to pour latte art—and wondering how on earth I was going to adapt to the kind of heat I’d spent my entire life escaping in La Plata and Buenos Aires…

…I eventually arrived at a Sunday wrapped in absolute silence.

(The windows stayed closed anyway.)

I’m convinced that if I ever find any of the things I wrote in school or university, I’ll probably come across an ode to the Sunday blues. Some desperate little story. Or maybe the clumsy flirtation with death that often comes from being unable to tolerate that much stillness and silence—especially the kind happening inside yourself.
This version, though, carries far more conviction, desire, and willingness to live than anything I might have written between adolescence and… I don’t know, twenty-seven or twenty-eight—the age of self-destructive rock stars and tragic myths.
The music I loved always pulled me toward melancholy. Sometimes it genuinely worried me how fascinated I was by the lives behind the songs—Cobain, Ian Curtis, Morrison.

Eventually, that fear faded.

I stopped worrying that I might secretly be a future suicide statistic and started making peace with my emotional depth, without feeling the need to diagnose every feeling.
Most of the time, it turned out I was simply overthinking myself into oblivion.

Now I have more tools. More awareness of that tendency. And, above all, an unquestionable love for being alive.
Writing is one of those tools. A grounding wire.
Reading—or listening to—other people has also played a huge part in developing what we now call emotional intelligence.

This little decalogue came out of deliberately practicing every single one of the things you’re about to read, during that empty Sunday in Valencia.
t was another one of those recurring seventh days that caught me off guard by bringing back the same panic and suffocation I’d known as a teenager—the kind I used to survive by asking my dad to take me for a drive around town, preferably while one of his Pink Floyd cassette tapes played in the background.

Enough said.

Here’s the list. Simple and straight to the point:

Make your cucha³ look nice.
Make sure you like what your eyes see.

Write down whatever comes through.
Split it into two lists: dark thoughts and bright ones.
Hold space for both.
Integrate them.
Integrate yourself.

Do something that genuinely brings you joy.
Then actually do it.
Even if it’s cleaning the bathroom.
I cooked.
(Just everyday basics—it doesn’t matter what.)

Go back to the classics. The playlists that remind you who you are.
When nostalgia shows up, let it.
Sit with it. Enjoy it.
But don’t forget to switch, at the right moment, to a song that lifts you back up.
Careful there.

(My personal prescription? Plastic ’90s pop—that’s what I call it—or a proper cumbiazo bien fulbo.⁴ Failing that, any video of Leo «La Pulga» Messi⁵ is practically foolproof.)

Eat something delicious.
All your senses deserve equal attention.
That’s what being present actually means.

We tend to overfeed our eyes and forget the rest. Taste and smell, on the other hand, can be extraordinary travel companions.

Go for a walk.
Head out with the sole intention of getting a little lost.
Walk until your gambas⁶ get tired—your testa⁷ usually softens right after.

Trust chance.
Pay attention to what’s happening outside so your inner chaos can find its proper scale again.

If you’re buying something you actually need—yerba⁸ or chocolate absolutely count as necessities—smile at the cashier.
Offer them the very best version of your energy, even if they don’t smile back.

Choosing to vibrate high is an individual practice, but its effects multiply surprisingly fast. And if they do smile back?
Congratulations. You’re both millionaires.

Tie up whatever loose ends suddenly come to mind.
A text message.
A random email (yes, vintage).
A letter you never send.
(At least not yet.)

Get it out of your head. And if you can bring yourself to close your eyes, hit ENTER, and trust the universe a little… Send it.
Sometimes it’s worth believing that the internet can also be a place where good surprises happen.

Reach out to the friend—or even the acquaintance—that suddenly comes to your mind… or your heart.
Guardian angels exist on this plane, too.

They’re people.
Asking for help and simply saying Hi are, more often than not, different ways of opening the same door: making room for a genuine encounter.
That’s where we expand.
That’s where we multiply.
That’s where we save one another.

A little wine to wrap things up.
(A chilled rosé or a crisp dry white if it’s as hot as it is over here. But there are as many preferences as there are palates. And if you don’t drink alcohol, raise a glass of whatever makes you happy.)

So…
Salú’, and ci vediamo domani.

BONUS TRACK

There’s always enough time for the thing that keeps popping into your head.
Not forever.
Just enough.

FINITO.

Sin un mango (Argentine slang): completely broke; having no money at all. ↩︎
Mate: Argentina’s traditional herbal infusion, shared socially from a single cup using a metal straw (bombilla). ↩︎
Cucha (Argentine slang): literally «dog’s bed.» Affectionately used to mean your room, your place, or your little corner of the world. ↩︎
Cumbiazo bien fulbo (Argentine slang): an unapologetically loud, joyful cumbia anthem with the kind of energy associated with football culture—perfect for lifting your spirits. ↩︎
La Pulga («The Flea»): Lionel Messi’s lifelong nickname. ↩︎
Gambas (Argentine slang, from Italian): legs. ↩︎
Testa (Italian): head. Commonly used in Argentine slang. ↩︎
Yerba: dried leaves of yerba mate, used to prepare mate, Argentina’s traditional herbal infusion. ↩︎

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