Every time despair floods me, when pain and even thoughts of death fade into silence, in those brief moments of quiet, I find just enough strength to shout out to the Universe, “Help me!” and ask a simple question: “Why have I been given THIS trial? What should I endure, and what am I meant to understand?”
And every time, the Universe—loving me—answers. These answers come in many forms, but ultimately the meaning I need to grasp always boils down to one thing.
This time, I asked a very real question: “Why this love, if it only plunges my soul into darkness and makes life unbearable? Because love drives us forward—real love. It illuminates, enlightens, lifts us up, purifies. All my past falls into love-brought transformations like these. So what’s wrong this time? Was it because it started from desire? Because it didn’t grow pure within me but fed on the madness of a night spent in a hallway? But maybe the nature of it doesn’t matter. What matters is IT itself. Love… or is what I call love something else? Please, help me understand—WHY? Why this pain? Why this fragile balance on the edge, the fear of dying drowned by the fierce desire not to live?”
I fell asleep holding that question on my lips, with a heavy fear: I was already preparing myself to leave this life.
Monday came with the practical need to fix my car. Life on inertia—sometimes tragic, sometimes helpful—gave me a moment to breathe, to think, to understand what I needed to understand. Sitting in a small café near the auto service, sipping homemade glisse (a weak, sweet coffee with a piece of vanilla ice cream), reading The Perfumer with devilish anticipation, walking during breaks around Cheremushki, enjoying “smoking” my R1 through a mouthpiece, inhaling fresh air after smoky moments—I gave myself the time to receive answers to the questions I had asked the Universe the night before.
Answers always come. But they come differently each time. Sometimes I hear them on TV—if I tune in just right. Sometimes they come from strangers’ words on the subway. Sometimes they come from unexpected places, from unexpected people, from books, from dreams. And sometimes they simply resonate inside me as simple knowledge. There it is—the token. The token falls, and I UNDERSTAND. Suddenly, I realize that I already knew the answer.
My token fell the moment I lowered the mouthpiece into a small leatherette envelope that held freshly bought cleaning brushes. I looked at the tip of the mouthpiece sticking out and UNDERSTOOD.
I finally grasped the meaning of a mysterious phrase that has long teased me—the title of a book by one of my favorite novelists, Ernest Hemingway. Until now, I had always dismissed the pressing need to UNDERSTAND this phrase. Why? Who could require me? Why did my conscience torment me with this duty when I did nothing to fulfill it? It tormented me—the feeling that I must understand and the shame that I did not want to. I knew what I feared: if I understood, I would lose forever the reason to pity myself.
I know self-pity well. I know its destructiveness, and how it is mutually exclusive with love. But if we cling to something, it must serve us. What did self-pity serve me? That question deserves a monograph of reflection. But why? I accept my self-pity just as I accept pain and anger, joy and hatred, round hips and newly appeared wrinkles.
Now, I have “allowed” my self-pity to exist, and at the same time, I have “allowed” myself to understand what “The Party That Is Always With You” really means. This phrase spun in my thoughts—“party, party… party that is always with you…”
“What is always with me?” I wondered. “What could that party be? The party that never leaves, that is always there, only needing my permission to be? What is it like? What word names that which is embedded in Hemingway’s title?”
And then I realized—what is always with me and can be celebrated? To celebrate! To celebrate LIFE!
My God! There it is. Celebrate life! How many times have I said this phrase in Russian without truly grasping its deeper meaning, its esoteric essence? To celebrate life does not mean to indulge in idleness. To celebrate life means something far greater…
Suddenly, a shiver seized my body, sharp and clear. In that moment, all my feelings seemed filtered through a complex, sparkling prism. The world appeared dazzling—multicolored, transparent, amber—like the very facets of the Great Love burning in my soul.
So this is why you came into my life, young, beautiful soul still searching for yourself—because you made me open my heart to great pain, and from that pain came great purification.
A new wind blows. Constantly. It softly whispers, sometimes crying out in despair.
I want to step onto the dangerous path of the unknown, but one of freedom. I will have to lose much. I want to go forward. But I don’t want to lose. Yet, one can never acquire something without losing something.
For the new, there must always be room, made by the old being cleared away. But to lose would be too much. Not just things. Not just people. Not just relationships. Everything. The familiar way of life—completely. This is the path of solitude. The path to power—always the path of one.
I feel that my being is constantly balancing on the edge between two worlds—the world of strength and the world of familiar, everyday joys.
And I also know well that one day, I will have to make this choice once and for all. And this choice will not come from the mind. It will simply happen to me. And I will not participate in it. Perhaps even, nothing will change for anyone regarding who I am in society. But for me, everything will already be different. Everything will already be other. And no matter how hard I unconsciously (subconsciously) try to resist it, I understand that there is no turning back. There is no path back. There is no path sideways. There is no path across.
There is only a path outwards. Beyond the boundary. Beyond the limits. The responsibility for those to whom much is given is always great. I’ve understood. Complaining is ridiculous. Resisting is pointless. I already know that the Path will find me sooner or later.
So let it find me sooner. I’ve understood. Resistance is pointless. I’ve simply accepted it.
I’ve often wondered—why do I feel so sad? Loneliness has nothing to do with it. This sadness is the subconscious understanding that you don’t belong to what you are. You don’t belong to yourself. You can suppress this voice that calls you to break beyond the closed walls. But then you die. And I’ve always wanted to be alive.
Until the end of the world.
To celebrate LIFE simply as it is. My pain, my desire for death—they are nothing but a STRONG desire FOR LIFE. And I am ready to accept this life in all its fullness. Even if I never taste the sweetness of that great happiness I dream of—alas, not everyone flies to the stars—this is the objective reality. But remembering the words of a simple song, I know this: “If you really try…”
I accept you, life. I allow myself to be in this life—in that great celebration which is always with me.
