Instinct

First entry of the year. Mom bought me this notebook because she says I need to 'process my emotions' somewhere other than out loud at three in the morning. She's probably right. The problem is, I never really know what emotion it is exactly. It's not sadness. It's not anxiety, though the psychologist once said it was, and I told him no, and he just pondered. It's more like... static noise. Like when your body wants to do something, but there's nothing to do, and that energy bounces off the walls until it gets into your teeth. Today on the bus, I stood up even though there were empty seats. I stayed standing the whole way because I needed my feet on the ground. The lady next to me gave me a strange look. I stared back until she looked away. It wasn't meant to be rude. It's just what I do.

There's something I've done since I was little that I've never told anyone. Before entering any place, I stand at the door for a second and look. I look at everything: where people are, how they move, where the exits are. I evaluate. Only then do I enter. My cousin Julieta says I'm 'super observant' as if it's a compliment. To me, it's not a trait; it's a necessity. If I don't do it, something in my chest tightens, and I find it hard to focus on what's next. Today, I walked into the new History classroom and stood at the door for about three extra seconds. The teacher asked if something was wrong. I said no. Then I sat at the edge, near the window, with a view of the hallway. That made me feel better. I always choose the edge seats.

I saw a video on TikTok. It was of a girl describing exactly the feeling I had but couldn't name: that urge to run without reason, the way closed spaces become oppressive, having an internal alert system that works all the time even when there's no real danger. She called it therianthropy. She said she was a fox. I watched it four times. Then I watched it a fifth time. I searched the hashtag. I spent two hours reading. I didn't sleep well that night, but not because of anxiety: because of something I can only call recognition. Like when you hear a song for the first time and already know you'll listen to it a thousand more times.

I researched more. There are communities on Reddit, Discord, YouTube. People explain things I always thought were just mine: the instinct for territory, the compulsive curiosity, the need to explore before committing, the discomfort with arbitrary social hierarchy. A guy from Spain explained that he doesn't believe he's literally an animal. It's more like an inner identity, a way of processing the world that doesn't quite fit the standard human way. That seemed like the most honest explanation I read. I'm not saying I'm a fox. I'm saying there's something in me that works that way. And that, apparently, has a name.

I told Sofi, my best friend. I prepared her two days in advance, found the words, calculated her reaction. Sofi is the most open-minded person I know, but it still made me a bit nervous. I said, 'I found something that explains me pretty well.' She asked what. I said, 'Therianthropy. I think my inner species is a fox.' There was a two-second silence. Then she said, 'How fox-like?' I laughed. That seemed like the perfect question. Not 'are you okay?', not 'isn't that weird?'. But 'how much fox?'. I explained. She listened for an hour. In the end, she said, 'It makes a lot of sense for you.' She didn't say she fully understood. But she believed me. That was enough.

I changed a few small things in my room. I put a rug on the floor that was previously bare. I moved the desk to the corner so I could have the wall at my back when I study. I put pictures of foxes on the edge of the mirror, not many, three or four, images I found of Patagonian gray foxes. There's one in particular I like: a fox looking at the camera with that expression of total evaluation, completely present, without nervousness or aggression. Just pure attention. I identify with that photo in a way I don't with any mirror. Mom came in and saw everything and asked if I was 'going through something'. I said I was decorating. Technically, it's true.

The Discord is called The Pack. I found it through a Spanish girl named Sombra. There's also a Mexican guy, they call him Coyotl. And others from Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Spain. Most are between 15 and 22 years old. We talk about everything: how to handle social environments that exhaust us, dreams where we are who we are without apologies, how to live with this identity without the world treating you like you're crazy. There's a huge difference between reading about therianthropy and talking about it with people who also live it. One thing is theory. Another is the 'yes, that happens to me too' at eleven at night from different time zones.

Today in Palermo Park, I sat on the grass and stayed still for twenty minutes. That's an eternity for me. Normally, I can't stay still for that long in an open space; the energy calls for movement. But today something was different. There was a group of pigeons nearby, and I watched them. One of them strayed from the group, explored a three-meter radius, and returned. It did this five times. Not because there was danger. Pure curiosity, I think. Or to verify. I thought: I understand exactly what you're doing. I understood it more than any person who came to sit nearby to talk on the phone. That seemed important to me. Also a bit lonely. But mostly important.

I read about Punta Tombo. It's a reserve in Chubut, Patagonia. I knew it for the penguins; everyone knows it for that. But it turns out there are also Patagonian gray foxes that walk among the visitors. Not in cages, not in separate areas. They walk free, look at you, sometimes approach. The instinct of the Patagonian fox is exactly that: curious, calculated, fearless but with discernment. I watched videos. I was speechless. There's something about seeing an animal being exactly what it is, in freedom, without apologizing for how it works, that moved something in me that I don't quite know how to name yet. I started thinking I have to go.

I proposed the trip to mom. She looked at me with that mix of 'this is too much for a Saturday afternoon' and 'but if Luna really wants something, she won't stop until she gets it'. I explained: Punta Tombo, the foxes, Patagonia, July, the penguins too because I know she likes them. It was strategic. I said I wanted to see the foxes up close. She asked why the foxes specifically. I said I felt a connection with those animals for a while. It was the most honest I could be without going into the whole context. Mom has known me since I was born. She looked at me for a long time. Then she said, 'Let's see if there are cheap flights.' That in mom language means yes.

On Discord, Sombra asked if I had any shape-shifting dreams. I said not exactly, but there's a recurring sensation in my dreams of running with my body very low, close to the ground, with the wind in my face, making quick zigzag decisions. She said, 'That's the fox.' She didn't say it like a dramatic revelation. She said it like 'oh, yeah, that's normal'. That normality was what struck me the most. That something I carried as if it were a peculiarity of my functioning was so recognizable to her. I wrote later, alone: what if all my life I've been running the right way and just no one told me?

Three weeks until the trip. I started reading more about the Patagonian gray fox, scientific name Lycalopex griseus. Omnivorous, territorial but adaptable, active mainly at dawn and dusk, generally solitary though it forms stable pairs. It has a surprising tolerance for human presence when it learns there's no threat, but it never loses its alertness. I read these characteristics, and something strange happens: it's not that I identify with a pretty metaphor. It's that I recognize concrete behaviors in myself that had no name until now. The activation at dawn: yes. The preference for the edges of the group, not the center: yes. The selective tolerance: yes. It's not fantasy. It's description.

I had a difficult conversation with my Aunt Graciela. I made the mistake of mentioning something about therianthropy at my cousin's birthday dinner. Not much, just that I found an interesting online community. Aunt Graciela asked what community. I explained the basics. Silence. Then she said that 'those internet things' were dangerous and that I had to be careful about 'identifying too much with animals'. It was frustrating because it wasn't direct hostility; it was that adult thing where they think they're protecting you while actually telling you that what you are is a problem. I didn't argue. I took another alfajor. But I wrote this when I got home because if I don't write it down, it stays inside and bites me.

We arrived in Trelew and took the cab to the reserve early in the morning. The Patagonian light is completely different from Buenos Aires. More horizontal, colder, without the filters of pollution and buildings. The sky is a blue that doesn't exist in Buenos Aires. As the car moved along the road, with the steppe landscape open in all directions, something in my chest loosened. I didn't notice until it happened. It's like I had a knot I didn't know I had, and suddenly it wasn't there anymore. Mom was looking at her phone. I was looking out the window and thinking about nothing, which for me is practically a miracle. The Patagonian steppe isn't pretty like a park or a garden. It's honest. And honesty calms me.

The penguins are wonderful, but that wasn't my goal today. I separated from mom with her permission and walked along one of the outer trails. Ten minutes in, I saw the first one: a Patagonian gray fox, medium-sized, fur between gray and cinnamon, sitting at the edge of the trail looking into the distance with that absolute indifference of someone who doesn't need to impress anyone. I stopped. I did nothing. Waiting is something I usually find very hard. Not this time. I stood still for what must have been four or five minutes. The fox eventually turned its head and looked at me. It didn't move. We looked at each other. I still didn't move. Neither did he. It was the calmest I've been in months.

I saw four foxes in total throughout the day. But the fifth was different. It was a female, smaller, with darker fur on her back. She was exploring the edge of the inner path with that thing I recognized immediately: the three-meter radius, the return, the verification, the return. The same as the pigeon in Palermo but with a completely different elegance. She came within two or three meters of where I was. I crouched down slowly to be at her level. Not as a gesture of submission, but to not be so big. She stared at me for about ten seconds. And in those ten seconds, something I can't quite describe happened: I felt completely seen. Not evaluated, not judged. Seen.

Mom found me sitting on the ground of the trail, alone, looking at the steppe. She asked if everything was okay. I said yes, more than okay. She looked at me in that way mothers have of truly seeing you even if they don't exactly understand what they're seeing. She sat next to me without saying anything for a while. The wind was cold, and the sky was completely clear, and the reserve smelled of salt and dry steppe. Mom put her arm around my shoulders. She didn't ask what I was thinking. Sometimes you don't need to. Sometimes having someone who loves you next to you is enough. I said softly, 'Thanks for bringing me.' She said, 'I knew you needed to come.' I don't know how she knew. I guess mothers have their instincts too.

Back at the hotel, I wrote a lot. I tried to put into words what happened with the fox on the trail. It wasn't an epiphany with lights and music. It was smaller and more real than that. It was mutual recognition between two organisms that function similarly: attentive, on the edges, curious, capable of stillness when it's worth it. She didn't speak to me. I didn't speak to her. But it wasn't necessary. I think of all the times I've had to explain myself, justify myself, convince someone that I wasn't miscalibrated. The fox didn't need any of those explanations. She just looked at me as I am. That should be normal. It still isn't everywhere. But now I know it exists.

I sent photos to the group of The Pack. Sombra sent four exclamation marks. Coyotl said 'dude, that's everything'. We wrote for two hours despite it being midnight. We shared stories of our travels, of the animals of our species, of what it feels like to be in a place where your inner nature isn't a rarity but something real in the world. Someone in the group said we should all meet in person someday. Not as tourists. As what we are. I liked that idea. I don't know if it will happen. But I like that it exists as a possibility in some corner of the future.

Last entry in this notebook. Mom is right: filling an entire notebook in six months isn't bad for someone who swore they had nothing to process. I don't have everything figured out. I don't know how it will be to talk about this with more people, or when, or if I'll want to. I don't know if the world will understand or if it will keep looking at me strangely when I stand at doors evaluating. But I do know something I didn't before: the restlessness I carry isn't wrong. It runs at its own pace because that's how it works. Foxes don't ask permission to explore. They don't apologize for being alert. They don't pretend to be calm when they're not. I don't need to do that anymore either. There's another notebook in the drawer. I'll start it tomorrow.