Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?
If I had to relive a year of my life, I would relive 1994.
I was in Moscow in 1994, when Russia (but also Ukraine) was undergoing life crisis. After years of hunger shops restarted to sell some eatable products, such as bread, cheese or milk, instead of American aid, consisting of some kind of dry sausage and dry milk – saved us from hunger but obviously, good only as a temporary measure. Small kiosks, installed strategically mostly next to underground stations, were selling all kind of stuff, Mars and Snickers chocolate bars, cigarettes and tampons. There was also vodka and some other alcohol, tempting passers-by to forget about hard life . Everyone was drinking at that time, including me and my friends. Not in big quantities, but still. We were adults already, 18/19 years old, not that anyone was ever checking our age. Everything was allowed, everything could be bought and sold, including souls, – the situation in Russia was near its total collapse.
Still, despite the misery, poverty, and total lack of moral guidance (with mafia having the main authority then), I loved being there. I was rejected and treated like shit by my family, but I had amazing friends. There was Sergey, who would take me to incredible parties at VGIK (he was studying to become an actor), where it was constant laughter, culture exploration and fun. There was also Masha, who was my main protector (I was living on my own from the age of 17), with whom we started to smoke our first cigarettes, bought with no ID check at a kiosk. There was Anna with whom I was studying at the Linguistic University in Moscow, while exploring Moscow’ cultural scene, and visiting different Churches. There was another Anya, who would explore with me some magical stuff, like the astrology’ charts and palm reading. I was going to the theatre three times a week, and I was constantly reading and studying. Everything was so exciting and interesting!
And yet, I had to leave it all. Because of my family. I was literary thrown away. I was unwanted, isolated, and unworthy, considered as an outcast well before my first psychosis. And since my mother had been living in the Netherlands then, it made sense that I would go to Brussels to study in French, a language I was in love with.
And so, I left. And if I could choose a year to re-live, I wonder whether I would make the same choice.
I am not so sure…
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