Selfportraits

March was full of emotional storms. Crises, reflections, strong feelings… so many things inside me.

Sometimes there were moments of happiness and energy, but honestly, most of the time — maybe 80% — I felt like I was made of this ugly mix of sadness, weakness, anger, passive aggression, jealousy, envy. The real world around me felt like a beautiful fairytale. But inside, my emotional world felt like a swamp. A swamp I couldn’t escape from, and I couldn’t understand it.

Freedom — it’s just a word, but it brings so many emotions in me. I don’t know if this deep wish to be free came to me with my mother’s milk, or maybe it’s something that belongs to Ukrainians, or maybe it just grew in me during my life. Even at school, from the very first grades, we learned poems by Ukrainian writers — and they were all about the fight, about freedom, about values, about family… When you’re a child, you don’t really understand it, it feels boring. But now, when I remember or read the words of Taras Shevchenko, Hryhorii Skovoroda, Lina Kostenko — I feel them. I understand them. I see them.

What is freedom? What good is in it?

They say it’s golden.

No, not golden: compare all the gold,

And against freedom, it is just mud.

(Hryhorii Skovoroda)

I always wanted to be independent. I wanted freedom in everything. And I learned how to give this freedom to myself, in the biggest way I could. But now, there is a person in my life with whom I want not just to share my freedom — but to grow it together. Maybe even to lose a little part of my independence… It’s my fiancé, Gary.

Yes, I am not a bachelorette anymore — I am a bride. And you know, it’s not so easy to realise. Not the future wedding, not my new status, not the changes… But the fact that freedom can exist even when you are not alone. That it can exist inside a relationship. (And I don’t mean “open relationship”.) I mean real freedom. When your freedoms meet, and they don’t fight with each other — they become bigger together. They give you more space, more energy, more possibilities. I believe in this. I know our relationship is already like this, and it will stay this way. I feel so thankful — to my fiancé and to life for bringing us together. I already understand this with my mind. Now, my next step is to feel it with my heart. To not be afraid of this new freedom. To explore it.