What song do you think everyone should listen to once in their life ?
“Landslide” Fleetwood Mac (because breakup songs are inevitable parts of our life and they should be uplifting rather than heartbreaking)
What film is a must see ?
“I killed my mother” by Xavier Dolan (2009) (because it is stunning and it makes me cry every time I watch it)
What book is a must read ?
“Norwegian Wood” by Haruki Murakami (because it’s leaves you pondering, whether there is such a thing as “finding oneself”)
What are you most grateful for ?
Probably for the spring. It doesn’t sound like much but after months of ever-present drizzle and clouds accompanied by difficult experiences in my life, I couldn’t wait to see the daffodils and feel relieving sunshine on my face.
“It’s evident/ the art of losing’s not too hard to master/ though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.” One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
Quite recently I have lost someone, who was very important to me. My life used to revolve around that person. It was comfortable at the time, I was happy, I felt safe and in the right place. The problem with relying your whole world on one person is that people are fragile and changeable. It doesn’t sound like a good base for the structure of your life, does it? Making someone into your Sun puts a lot of pressure on that person, and makes you either constantly burning or overshadowed. When I had to let go, I hated the idea. Every part of my body went on strike, terrified of the change.
That wasn’t the first change in my life in recent months. Moving to another country, starting university, doing a degree that I constantly doubted, meeting an array of new people, new personalities. It seemed that my life became a change in itself, and everything was spinning simply too fast. I wasn’t sure if I will be able to keep up with it. I was just scared. There were moments when my fright was mixing with excitement and happiness. It all seemed like a ticking bomb, ready to explode every time something unexpected happened. That meant, basically any other day.
Now that I reflect on these things, I conclude, that they were not particularly unique. Most of the people I have met since September, shared at least some of these events with me, not to mention the global pandemic and that it made us change even the simplest things in life. A collective sense of feeling lost and left without supervision.
Right now, it turns out I am okay. Don’t misunderstand me, I still don’t really know if I am making the right choices if I will ever find the “right way” to do things if my changes will make me “the best version of myself”. But it all doesn’t matter, life does not have to be a pursuit of perfection and the “ideal” you. There are some people that we lose on the way, some things we leave behind, some that will never be replaced, but every day, week, month or year brings changes that we have to accommodate to one way or another.
