I wore contact lenses today for the first time in my life. I saw “the world in HD” for the first time. For the first time, I was there, I was there, I knew that I could be like everyone else.
There’s a sentimental story to be told: half my life in the dark, trapped in poverty, an inadvertent joy… Except it’s simpler than that. I was just born short-sighted. Like my mother. I never saw well. My eyesight never dropped. I’m 28 years old, and I never tried to help myself until now. I hated myself as a child, as a girl with a karee, a chubby puppy, determined never to have what others had, because I couldn’t afford it. The stockbrokers advise not to risk what you can’t lose. I went further, I decided never to have it.
As a child, I cried when I heard a song from a movie with the words “to have or not to have.” I would go away where I wouldn’t be seen and cry. One day, when I was feeling very happy, I got guinea pigs. It was an act of unprecedented courage, I was very afraid of losing them.
I live on the second floor. When I had to go to the vet, I would take the pigs out in a cat carrier, put them on the floor and close the door. And I always imagined that I put the carrier on the railing and it would fall down.
I’m the kind of person who looks at a pretty thing in a store and doesn’t buy it. Knows the possibility and doesn’t use it. I’m more used to it that way. I also really like comfort and beauty. And to paint. As a child, I really wanted to go to draw, but my mother said that this is for children who have the talent. I also wrote a lot when I was a kid. Made up silly stories and wrote, wrote, wrote. I had a closet full of notebooks. Whoever read was surprised and praised. My mother didn’t read. My cousin wrote, too, and once she showed it to the teacher. The teacher praised her, but I couldn’t understand how she made up her mind? What do you mean, she showed it to the teacher! How did she get the idea that she would be interested?
My sister was bought a white dress, just like a princess, and she ran around the house in it. She even slept in it on the most magical night while it was new. It wasn’t new, of course, there was no money for a new one, but that didn’t matter to the kids. I wanted a princess-like dress, too, but I was told, “why should you.” I had no reason to. At the matinee at school all the girls were princesses and I was Pinocchio. My costume consisted of a cone-shaped piece of colored cardboard with a rubber band attached to it. It was a nose.
We were also often photographed at school. At the very time the teacher told all the girls to come in white bows. I liked that idea a lot, and I liked the big white bow even more. But that bow wasn’t for me. Why? Mine was the smallest and cheapest one with a green border. I was reminded of that hem for a long time. I really still don’t understand how a child of six can buy his own bow. If I could, I would have, by all means.
I had short hair until I was twelve. I liked to think it was long, dreaming before I went to bed. My mother wouldn’t let me let it go. She said it would be a lot of fuss. And just before school in the summer I got lice, and she shaved my head. Of course, it was a lot less hassle that way. When my hair grew back, it wasn’t too thick. My grandmother, who was my grandmother, not my sisters, stroked my sister’s head and sighed that I didn’t have it like that. They still aren’t, but I love them.
I love a lot of things now. I can afford it. Before I only liked books and food. A good appetite was the only thing I was praised for. That was before school, then I started doing well in school, and for a while I was praised for my grades. Then they started giving me money. Not much, but I quickly learned to lie to get more. It wasn’t nice of me, but Grisha, who got a B in a quarter, was sent to sea. I never got a B in a quarter, but the discrepancy couldn’t help but catch the eye of a smart kid. Grisha, if anything, is doing fine in life, he is not a “C” student.
Money is a good thing, by the way. My mother told me that I did not earn my opinion. She really didn’t either, only my dad earned it. Daddy was going to the bathroom one morning and passed out. He hit his head. I screamed: “Daddy!” And Mom woke up. She told a friend later that she went up to him and she thought he wasn’t breathing. Then she added: “I wondered what we were going to live on!” Now I’m earning my opinion. And I give it to my mom, too, what can I do without it. As it turns out, I’m better suited for it.
I’ve been fat my whole life. Minus a couple or three years. I was totally obsessed with eating right back then. My hair was falling out, my teeth were crumbling, and my skin was flaking off my arms in flaps for some reason. I was also scared all the time. When I was a teenager, I didn’t want to be friends with my mother’s friend’s daughter. She was a nice girl, but we had nothing in common. I had another friend who was very beautiful, just unique. My mother once told me that this girl was friends with me because she looked even more petite against my background.
I was married, but I didn’t have a white dress, like a princess. And that had nothing to do with my mother. I chose my own dress. It’s just that I already knew, as I knew my name – I’m not a princess. I got divorced very quickly. I generally like to walk away from everything and drop everything. I still choose not to have. I’m fat, and I eat until I feel sick. Because otherwise I will lose weight. I’ll have a beautiful figure, I’ll be afraid to lose it. Will I be… okay? I walk to my moderately high-paying job in a fog and I can’t read a single inscription on the subway. Otherwise, I’ll be comfortable. I’ll be…okay?
I’m trying to change things. I compliment people. I draw. I know several languages. I go to the gym, I swim, and I binge eat until I’m stupefied. I’m a good cook. I am useful to the company. I travel, I do meditation illustrations for kids, I’ve translated a dozen books, and these books – they’ve been printed, and it’s almost as if they printed those, mine, which I wrote a closet full of and threw away because “who needs them?” I’m great with English articles, I tear my skin to blood and chew on my nails, I make myself delicious salads and eat half a store at a time. I’m covered in scars like a quail’s egg, I have big black eyes, and I find the strength to apologize when I’m wrong, but not to my mother. I do a little programming and read a lot, more classics, and I wish I could smoke instead of eat, but I don’t like it at all. I buy myself clothes for normal, neat kids. I often feel bald and battered, with a cone of colored cardboard on my nose.
I pay a lot. The more I cry, the fewer tears remain. Someday the sea will dry up, and something good will grow in its place. And I will be able to see every blade of grass. As I do now.
