I never sleep well, especially not in a time of turmoil.
I am sitting alone in the middle of the night in a hotel room in Wroclaw, where I spent five years of my life, writing this piece.
In my memory, these years are romantic and glamorised, but they were also turbulent. When I moved here from my little village in Lower Silesia, I was 18. When I left it, I was 24. How could it not have been a time of unrest? I was so young and did not understand anything, including why everything seemed so hard just for me (then at least I realised it was not only for me; it’s still something).
I am sitting alone here ten years later, listening to rain.
Loneliness suits me for now. The first half of this year challenged me so much that I am finding comfort in solitude; however, I know there is a trap there. The trap of trying to build a wall from memories and people who caused the turmoil in my life, trying to forget about the surrounding world and feeling the bliss of almost non-existence, at least non-existence in the context of dealing with the assessment of myself in the eyes of other people.
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I am having a little bit of a Russian classic revival here.
Lately, I have been listening to another brick of a Russian book while going through my Eastern European nostalgia era.
There’s nothing too wild, just good old ‘War and Peace#. Honestly, I have no idea how many people read that brick of a book. I read it almost exactly a decade ago when I lived in Italy. It was a very cheap version in English with a tiny font that I carried with me everywhere, reading it in parks and cafes where I could only afford two-euro cappuccinos.
I am not sure what I thought about it back then. But now, like probably many people, when I am going through it, I only really care about the ‘peace’ parts of ‘War and Peace’—the parts with dancing, gossiping, family drama, and romancing, which is unfortunately probably what I live very often for in real life, too. Well, it’s better than living for wars, I suppose.
But if you think these parts were peaceful, you know nothing.
My two favourite chapters of War and Peace centre around two heroines of the novel, two very different women. One is a devout, homely but warmhearted woman named Maria, and the other is lively, cheerful and pretty Natasha. Both are connected by this guy, my ultimate crush, heroic sad boy Andre Bolkonsky, who is the former’s brother and the latter’s fiance.
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The character of Anatole Kuragin also connects them.
I met many men like Anatole—charming, not attached to anyone and a lover of women. Firstly, he courts Maria, who is ashamed of how attracted she is to him. He wants her only for her father’s money and a significant dowry. Fortunately, she notices him flirting with her maid and refuses to marry him, saving herself from a lifetime of misery with a flickery but beautiful man.
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Natasha later meets Anatole when she is already engaged to Andre Bolkonsky and thoroughly believes she is in love with him, even though I personally have many issues with it, partially because of their age gap.
Natasha sees Anatole only twice, maybe three times, but it is enough to confuse her. Each of their encounters is full of chemistry. He catches her eye, holds her hand, and tells her how beautiful she is.
For him, it is just another game, for her, it is the matter of life or death.
She chooses turmoil and death over the stubborn and serious love of Prince Andre.
When she accepts his proposal to run away and elope (though he is secretly married already, so it’s all a big sham), her family finds out about this and locks her door. She is trapped, insane, with all her reputation and life ruined.
After the turmoil, there is tranquillity, and in this tranquillity, she falls ill, and all her passion for life disappears.
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It became my annual tradition to go to at least one new European city alone every year just for the heck of it—just for a couple of days to see what is there. Sometimes, it’s not much, but it’s always something.
A week ago, I went to Copenhagen for the first time. I must admit, I found the place a little underwhelming, but the art made it up for me.
Specifically, paintings of 19th and 20th-century Scandinavian artists that I never heard of before.
They moved me more than I expected. They were just so incredibly beautiful that it was a truly life-affirming experience for me. This is very personal and subjective, but they brought me peace after everything that happened to me and others this year.
The first six months of this year were horrible for reasons I cannot speak of.
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I am starting therapy to address all of that, everything I was subjected to. I want to believe that the damage that happened to me is reversible. There is so much to live for, and I need to move on, live for myself, and for this time I am given. I must remember my gratitude for this life and all the gifts.
Also, only in the last two or three months have I witnessed or experienced many friendships ending, relationships collapsing spectacularly, people I don’t like at all reemerging and now making me see them a few times a week, and a lot of disillusionment happening simultaneously. Change is good, and holding onto the miserable, ‘beneficial’ status quo just out of fear of being alone is a mistake, but can you, I don’t know, move it back to December?
Some individuals I probably idealised showed themselves to be completely different from what I believed in, which I am used to. Still, it never happened to everyone from every angle at the same time.
It’s a time of turmoil, and after months of trial, I don’t feel like I can deal with it.
I feel like running away from all the triggering people. All of them were my friends at some point, for longer or shorter.
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What I want to say here is that life has cycles.
Chaos and peace, turmoil and tranquillity will come and go. Depression is the ultimate standstill, and I will be trying with everything that I have in my arsenal not to let it happen. I don’t want to isolate myself from the world once again, escape everyone’s judgement, harsh words, and triggering memories of mistreatment from people who are still somehow loved and supported by others and have no shame for their past actions. Even if it’s so tempting, especially when I have to one time more look into the eyes of a person I wanted to love and I am no longer able to, for whatever reason.
Running away from my pain will only cause more of it, and I don’t want to face the consequences of that scenario.
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I recommend watching this video – it is about therapy in theory and the fact that you cannot escape the darker aspects of your personality. And that, unfortunately, you cannot escape the pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uLyGf-TbGM
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William Butler Yeats “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
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PS. Lifting heavy stuff also helps.
