I had always understood that I was stuck in adolescence, but my “blind spot” didn’t allow me to understand where, when, why, or what exactly was wrong. And then it happened—I understood. And immediately, everything fell into place. Right now, I feel as though I am trying to make up for all the years I didn’t live as an adult. First, as a teenager, then as a young adult, and now as a mature person. It’s as if I’m rushing through it all, in fast-forward mode, to quickly get through this stretch of experience. In real-time, I’ve been an eleven-year-old girl all my life, without realizing it. Now, I’m beginning to understand the truths that we learn as we grow up.
Simple truths, self-knowledge, understanding the world, realizing how everything works without any painful vision of the surrounding world or people, seen through the distorted prism of childhood traumas layered one upon another… And everything that I had understood intellectually, with my mind, but hadn’t really settled in my heart because there was no space for it, suddenly started to “click” and become my reality, my truth, me.
The understanding that Love is everywhere, and that you yourself are the source of love for yourself and everything around you, and that the world is not trying to push you away, and people are not trying to prove to you that they don’t love you… And that everything is okay with me. That there are no reasons or grounds for sadness. That ahead lies a vast, endless, beautiful life full of amazing opportunities, beauty, creativity, and extraordinary people. That nothing binds me, holds me back, or limits me. That my appearance, though it may be considered (in both literal and figurative senses ;), ultimately doesn’t matter, just as nothing really does. What matters is only that I am here now. And what I give to the world.
And so many other things that I had understood with my mind before, but hadn’t really accepted in my heart. Because in my heart lived the little eleven-year-old girl who just wanted to know that her parents loved her. She wanted that so badly that everyone around her turned into moms and dads, from whom she only expected one thing—to know that they loved her. My relationships with men, friends, and colleagues often boiled down to this pleading state…
And I didn’t see this little girl. I didn’t know her. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just live and be happy—just like that. But now I understand why I got stuck back in that distant 1983. And everything is clear now. The puzzle pieces have clicked into place.
The most amazing thing about this situation is that it is so individual that it’s impossible to share this experience or help someone else. Maybe I could have been helped earlier if I had found a good psychologist. But I don’t regret anything, even though I usually regret “wasted years.” I understand now that everyone has their own path. Each of us walks it. One in one way, another in another. I’m not dying yet; everything is still ahead of me.
My friend Alla wrote a poem for her mother’s fortieth birthday:
Forty—Isn’t that little?
But is it a lot?
Ahead lies the whole road.
You’ve just become older.
Finally, I’ve become older. Just a little more. I’ve stopped evaluating people, comparing myself to them. If, in the old way, I still compare, I immediately realize that it’s a pointless activity. We all are one. And each lives their own journey. And they are all beautiful. Maybe they’re not perfect. But first of all, if journeys were perfect, they wouldn’t have any meaning, because we wouldn’t learn anything. Secondly, haven’t we made or created something beautiful even in these imperfect journeys?
I look back at my life, and for the first time in forty years, I don’t regret a single minute. It’s all right. It’s all true. And the long years of a frightened girl, left alone with herself, trapped in the consciousness of an adult, I don’t regret. I don’t regret a single tear shed, a single mistake made. I suddenly just understood that this is how it should be. That this is life. And that this is me. And that I accept everything in it—from beginning to end.
And as much as I suffered two weeks ago, struggling and not understanding why, just as much is the beauty of my catharsis and this marvelous realization. The magical realization of life.