Part 13When I stepped out of Warsaw Airport, it was March 1,..

Part 13

When I stepped out of Warsaw Airport, it was March 1, 2021. I remember that moment vividly. Lighting a cigarette, I looked around and suddenly felt something strange yet incredibly warm—a sense of home.
It caught me off guard. I had only been to Warsaw once before, as a tourist. And now, this city was about to become my new reality.

I didn’t know the language, didn’t understand what life here was like, but deep inside, I felt that everything would change. That this place would become my home.

I had lived in Belarus for 25 years. It was where I was born, where my entire life had unfolded. But I had never truly felt at home there.

I always longed to travel, to explore the world. I knew that the boundaries of my mind were limitless. I never clung to labels, never believed in absolute truths. My mind was flexible, but there was one thing I could never achieve—finding peace within myself and taming my own darkness.

In Poland, I had no friends, and I often found myself alone.

I remember the autumn of 2021 as the warmest time in my soul, though the weather was cold. I read a lot, reflected even more, and learned to listen to myself.

I recall walking in the rain through a small park near my home, listening to „Martin Eden” by Jack London. That book has always been special to me. I remember the moment when the protagonist described love—and how deeply those words struck me. They reminded me of someone I had once loved.

By then, three and a half years had passed since we broke up. Yet I still couldn’t let him go.

I analyzed my feelings, trying to understand myself, and I realized—I no longer loved him as a man. But he had been my teacher, my authority, and I desperately craved his approval.

He was an artist. And every time I painted, a single thought echoed in my mind: „I have to create this painting so well that if he ever stumbles upon my page and sees it… he will be proud of me”.

I had turned him into my inner critic. I saw the world through his eyes, judged myself through his perspective. Even after all those years, I was still striving for his validation.

And it was destroying me. It was consuming me from within.

I was losing myself, and I no longer knew—where was the real me?

p.s. photographs of that period