I’ve lost most people of my past. And I realised that I’m somewhat afraid to meet them in person.
Because of one thing: they speak Russian. It’s hard to respect them for that, as most of them are from Belarus or Ukraine.
If a person is from Ukraine and they speak Russian, you can slap ‘an idiot’ label on them, and never regret you’ve lost that one.
The Russians (I worked in Moscow, and I have relatives not far), there’s nothing even talk about with them.
Belarus is somewhat harder. The country is de-facto occupied by Russia since 1918, with most Belarusians being killed during the 20th century (Stalin first, then Hitler). What’s left is tiny minority, and most of the country is populated by Russians. The Belarusian language is not spoken there, and when spoken, it’s a subject of repressions from the state. Hidden or not.
Most of the people from Belarus that I know personally have escaped the country due to the result of the failed revolution attempt, and the repressions that followed. Most of these people are living their peaceful lives, mostly in Europe, some in Australia, some in the U.S. (oh, poor souls!).
They’re the good people, the ones I know and think about while writing this. But most of them speak Russian at home. I wonder how they differ from Russian emigrants. And, well, perhaps they don’t watch the official Russian propaganda, but they watch the unofficial one then. (All those pseudo-opposition, so-called ‘good Russians’.) Perhaps some are just too busy with their new lives. I very much hope so.
Yet, still, I think uneasy about meeting any of them in person. That might be just a silly thing to worry about that: I may never meet most of these people ever again. I think I’d love to meet some of them, but that’s just— it’s rather some nostalgia trap than anything else. I don’t have any close friends. Just the people I’ve been friends with, within a very limited time (a couple of years). Some are old lovers, and the same thing applies: random people, I’ve been close to for a couple of years. Some made a huge impact on me, true, but still, it’s all is in the past, even if I still remember them, once in a while.
The reunions might be awkward and disappointing. We’re living on completely different tracks, and they don’t have to love the same development process as I do.
But they continue speak Russian, which became unacceptable to me. I can tolerate that to some degree, but that comes with a huge deal of disappointment.
They could have mastered other languages, Swedish, German, Polish, Czech, Dutch, English, American, Australian, Arabian (Farsi? Sorry, I have no idea of this group of languages), Turkish, French, Spanish, Portuguese. Impressive, how many different countries and cultures only the people I personally know, migrated to.
But they took Russia with them. They’re not even aware of that. They think it’s just a language, and probably that’s normal. Not everyone is having my experience, after all. They could have no resources to reflect on that. I was fortunate enough to have that happened to me, the realisation of what Russian language really is.
I’m just too good at languages, it turned out. Never thought that’s my strong side, not the math!
It wasn’t the war that forced me into this state, I was there long before the war started. But the war accelerated and cemented that mindset. The war, the genocide, made it non-negotiable. A random stranger here in Lviv has bigger chance sharing the same values with me rather than an old friend from Minsk.
Not to say Moscow, lol. With them we’re certainly of the opposite views.
I wanted to have a call with an old friend (not a close one though), who migrated to the States. We could have a potentially good conversation, or a series of calls, discussing different topics. But I just cannot find motivation for that. He’d speak Russian, I’d cringe at that, and I cannot speak Russian back. I’d attempt at speaking Belarusian, he may not get me properly over my excessive use of Ukrainian words, which he may not know.
We could have speak English with him, but I just cannot speak English with non-natives, I expect them to not understand me. Or I cripple my English in a weird attempt to be better understood. (Hope that’d change over time.)
I cannot enjoy casual calls with some other people who were my friends, close or not. Because them speaking Russian overweights the conversations we could have.
I cannot visit them in person either, or so I think. It feels like as conflict I’m trying to avoid. I’ve been trained to not afraid conflicts, but I don’t enjoy them. And certainly I have no energy for them either. I barely sleep these days.
That might be a made-up problem. But it feels like I just need to release this thought. And accept there is a solid chance of me either never meeting all these people ever again, or bumping into them accidentally somewhere in London, chatting for a few minutes, and never meet them again for the rest of my life, with no conflict even possible.
None of these people are even attempting at having any contact with me anyway. And if some of them would, I’m not even sure I’m going to even want to meet them in the first place, offline or not.
Perhaps, I just need to accept the fact that I’ve started anew a long time ago, and I’ve got somewhat lucky in that regard. And they’re not. They’re not going to change, and not that they have to.
There’s no issue in that.
It would great to have a great family (of parents and their friends or relatives), great school and university friends, great community of previous colleagues… but, that’s a privilege, not a given. The life is long, hopefully, and so I may find many new exciting social opportunities at some later point in life, where I won’t need to cringe on the people not getting some obvious things in life.
Letting go is hard for some reason. But it’s necessary.
Again: none of those people are even trying to have me in their lives. (And that’s normal.) Why would I even worry over something I don’t control (and shouldn’t), their lives.
It’s like the desire to live in a better world. Where people are smart. And just different.
It’s somewhat utopian and not healthy.
And the owls are not what they seem!