Here

I may be unemployed, I may be living with my grandparents, I may have a single friend, but it doesn't matter. At least I am here. Finally, I am here.

Wait

Graduation is in two weeks: at last! No more papers, no more readings, no more tests, no more -- wait. No more...friends. No more co-workers, no more roommates, no more of those who have shaped and molded my life and my mind and my very being for the past one two three four years -- no more. Wait. No more. No, I'm not ready for no more. Wait.

Seattle Dreaming

I remember being obsessed with the idea of moving to Seattle at the end of freshman year. I looked at apartments, thought about how much money I should save, and dreamed of walking those streets right after graduating from college.

Well the weeks, months, and years passed, and I forgot about that dream. Or rather, thought it would be too impossible, too impractical to actually come to fruition. And I began, instead, to plan on staying in Los Angeles, even though it makes me miserable.

But then, Seattle creeped back into my mind. It somehow came up during discussion with my roommates and one thing led to another, and before you know it, the three of us had Seattle on our minds. We're looking at housing, applying for jobs, and are going to visit in mid-April.

I am filled with anxiety but also anticipation. I left my heart in Seattle and want to go find it again.

Україна

It's quite bewildering that the political turmoil, civil disaster, and overall strife of a nation I've never even seen with my own eyes makes my heart so heavy. But it somehow aches like home.

Боже, я молюсь за Україну,
Боже, молю Тебе за людей.

I'm Leaving, I'm Gone

You're stuck in a chauvinistic, racist, homophobic state of mind and you don't even realize it. Or, rather, you do - you just don't care. To you it's all a joke. Rape, domestic violence, discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, and gender - it's all just a joke.

You go give God your time of day, wearing your Sunday best, but your very being is drenched with the stench of your hypocrisy; you disgust me. You physically revolt me. I get to thinking about the spiral that your mind is in, how indifferent you are to the culture you're a part of, the implications of your beliefs and your acceptances, and it churns my stomach and makes me sick.

And then you have the audacity to point your finger at me. You criticize and laugh at me for breaking away, you taunt and tease me for being offended and infuriated by your off hand remarks and "jokes." Fuck, are you kidding me? Thank whatever higher being there is that I am nothing like you. I don't know what caused my path to turn away from yours - they were parallel for so long. But fuck. I can't imagine being like you because then I'd hate myself just as much as I hate you.

Fuck you. You're 20, 21, 25 - where are your heads? Why can't you see how fucking fucked up you are? Goddamn. I don't need this in my life. I don't need you in my life. Any of you. You bring me nothing but anger, despair, and bitterness, infecting me, and only further causing me to be a cynical asshole.

Fuck you, I don't need you in my life. I don't need this.

I'm leaving.

I'm gone.

Never Coming, Never Going

I am never coming back -- there is nothing calling me, nothing drawing me in, nothing. It was never a home but a house filled with strangers and I was nothing more than a transient waiting for the moment I could move on and away and anyway if home is where the heart is then I'm still searching, I'm still looking for my heart. Blood is not thicker than water and it is all now just water under the bridge and you can take your words and your thoughts and just toss them into that stream and forget about me as surely as I will forget about you -- I am never going back.

Going Home, Away From Home

You’ve done this before, of course, many a time switching back and forth between lives, always leaving something behind as you embrace the new old. A balance would be ideal, but like a straight line or an arrow, your starting point rarely matches your target. So which life is the real one? Who are you? Where is home? Are you the person you left behind, or the person you’re going back to? And if both those Yous should ever meet, will the two different sides of that equation equal who you are now? Or has one side won out?

Going Home, Away From Home | Thought Catalog

Culture Cravings

I have never been especially in tune with my Ukrainian heritage - as a child detesting Saturday morning Ukrainian school, resenting learning the language, pleased that my features are more "American" than Slavic - but I've noticed that, at random times, I experience what I can only call culture cravings. 

Growing up, at school or in the community, I never associated myself with "the Russians" (as all Slavics were lumped under one label) because they were an embarrassment. They dressed funny, talked funny, almost always had a poor reputation of being shady, judgmental, and haughty. They looked down at Americans, refusing to accept the fact that by immigration, or for many even by birth, they themselves were Americans. They disgusted me and I didn't want to be associated with them but in rejecting these specific people and their specific flaws, I rejected the entire culture. 

But now that I'm so far removed from it, I miss it. I didn't fully realize it for a while, but I would find myself actually speaking Ukrainian to my parents when they called (as opposed to English, how I usually conversate with them) or listening intently to the documentaries in history class when they interviewed Russians or Poles, wanting to catch just snippets of a familiar dialect. When Angela came to visit in the fall, it was so refreshing to watch Everything is Illuminated and laugh at the jokes, to flow between languages in a conversation (because sometimes you just need a good "аж ну" or "ти шо, з дуба впав?"), and yes, I'll admit, to actually cook vareniki. It just felt nice. It felt nice to be near something that is so familiar, something that I never would have imagined that I would find myself missing.

I call these feelings "culture cravings" because I don't know what else to label them. I'm surrounded by a predominantly white American student body, in which the average person knows a single language, and sometimes, it just gets tiring. My tongue randomly gets tied up and I want to blurt out a Ukrainian phrase but no one would understand, or I find some Slavic joke or comparison amusing but no one would get the reference. I find myself craving culture - my culture, the culture that I spent so many years rebelling against and rejecting. 

I guess this is what is called growing up.

Home

It always seem so much better from further away. Every time I return, I remember why it was I so desperately wanted to leave. And every time I return, I dream of packing Ellie and my things and just running. Running away from all the burdens and reminders of all the problems and shortcomings of the past and the present, and running to peace and denial, to something new.

Maybe one day I'll run, but probably not. Maybe one day I'll find some place called home where I will actually want to stay. Maybe one day.

But probably not.

Home

May be surrounded by a million people
I still feel all alone
I just wanna go home,
Oh, I miss you, you know

Another aeroplane, another sunny place
I'm lucky, I know
But I wanna go home, I've got to go home

Let me go home, I've had my run
Baby, I'm done
I gotta go home, let me go home
It will be alright, I'll be home tonight
I'm coming back home

- Michael Buble, "Home"