a missing
I missed Ukraine today for the first time. There was a special on the USSR&Siberia on the History Channel while I was having my coffee and the news. As much as I knew it was time for me to leave that place, it has imprinted so much of my early adulthood.
I will never forget arriving there for the first time as a 17 year old, being smacked upside the head by the desolate need. The things I have seen and done there and been a part of are memories that I believe will shape the rest of my life.
I get a bit sad realizing its over and kind of confused as to why I learned Russian or gave such a big part of myself for something that seems to not hold a future for me, but I dont think I would ever change a thing.
Travelling by train in the snow and in the summer heat to all these post Soviet cities and villages, seeing so many orphanages, camps, hospitals and being able to be a small part of rebuilding a broken society was amazing.
I was telling someone the other day that I feel like something Ukraine did for me was open my eyes to the enormous need spread across the globe, totally devastate me and then eventually give me the understanding that I am not responsible for saving the whole of humanity from pain.
I believe and hope that some sort of fervor in me will return, hopefully accompanied with the knowing that really concentrating on an immediate horizon is more productive.
Moya molitva, nehai linei...
I will never forget arriving there for the first time as a 17 year old, being smacked upside the head by the desolate need. The things I have seen and done there and been a part of are memories that I believe will shape the rest of my life.
I get a bit sad realizing its over and kind of confused as to why I learned Russian or gave such a big part of myself for something that seems to not hold a future for me, but I dont think I would ever change a thing.
Travelling by train in the snow and in the summer heat to all these post Soviet cities and villages, seeing so many orphanages, camps, hospitals and being able to be a small part of rebuilding a broken society was amazing.
I was telling someone the other day that I feel like something Ukraine did for me was open my eyes to the enormous need spread across the globe, totally devastate me and then eventually give me the understanding that I am not responsible for saving the whole of humanity from pain.
I believe and hope that some sort of fervor in me will return, hopefully accompanied with the knowing that really concentrating on an immediate horizon is more productive.
Moya molitva, nehai linei...