The migration drama 1

With the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine and political turmoil in America, I see so many people leave their home to find a better place to live. I once too had to make the hard choice as I never fit there and Russian reality will never cease to remind me that I was obviously misplaced there at birth. I'm a Transdutch.

Any person leaving their home will go through a similar transformation when they move to another country. At first, the expectations and excitement, then the isolation, the realization that they are neither home nor in their birthplace as there is no way back. The depression, the desperation and loss of motivation to keep going. Some break and go back, some get fixed and get back. Some stay. I stayed.

All those things I call a migration drama. The drama of losing your friendships, family connection, national identity, cultural identity, religious identity. All the identities. The drama of reinventing yourself, disassembling and taking out everything, that made you human and trying to put together another human. Another you who will identify with no country, cling to no people, and feel the only invariance in life is its futility.

Migration is a little death. Death of the career for some, of equalizing with your peers, as the experience will make you decades older. Your dreams will die, too. And when you die, only when all is lost you can start building again. As long as there is any link to your previous country, no new and significant things will have place in your life. And this is where your migration drama ends. The wound will never heal fully, but you will be whole again if you are strong enough.

I want to show you my thoughts from my old blog from the times when I moved to Germany. I see so many people today struggle with the same things I struggled with when I was in their shoes. To all of them: you are not alone, it happens to all of us.

June 9th, 2011

When I was planning to go to Berlin in the spring, I had no time to live, I only had time to plan to go to Berlin. When the great plan was fulfilled, and I found myself here, my psyche was stunned by the shutdown of all my life organs. I didn’t have to work, I didn’t have to study. I only had to sleep and wait for the Internet to be installed. For the first time in several years, I didn’t have to think about money because I had already earned enough of it or given it as a gift.

What do I do now? Every new morning I get up and start getting fat. You just can’t imagine how great it is to get fat every day and look at the folds on my stomach. And I’m also looking for a job. But for now, it’s not very important, because I’m doing something else.

Every few months I choke on my own narcissism and go through a ritual that has already become so familiar. I take a microphone and a guitar, choose a longer song, turn on the necessary software and press the rec button, make sounds in time with the music and then save the recording. Then I open the resulting masterpiece, thinking about how much time has passed since the last time and how much better my vocals have become, put on headphones, take off headphones and delete the recording. The dilemma is that if you tell me that I sing badly, I will be offended. If you don’t tell me that I sing well, I will also be offended. And if you don’t say anything, I can start singing.

...

My friend N has been trying for as long as we’ve known each other. Every few months he tries to learn. He takes pens and notebooks, textbooks and manuals, launches the necessary software and saves notes. He puts on headphones and takes them off. And it is clear that it is better to play the piano standing up than to play with one hand, because he does not have the other.

P.S. Yesterday I received a residence permit. Happy.

When I moved to Germany I've lost my friends, The Mama Panda and The Scientist. We were as close as siblings, we spent all our time in the uni together and others even came up with a nickname SMS, that was the abbreviation of our given names. When I left, it felt as if someone cut my arm off. I felt lost and lonely the first two years in Germany. But the arm grew back.

June 20th, 2011

Tomorrow morning, someone will wake up very early. Because of the thesis defense. Because tomorrow is a very important day, and you need to wake up early and have time to worry and get nervous before the defense. And then go out with a satisfied face and not even think about the grade, and in your thoughts run around the hall of the dean's office naked and drunk and in one sock and kiss the dean on the old soft hairy nipple. And before that, you must tell no one to come because you are worried and because why are they there at all. And it's good without them. After that, everything is as in your thoughts, only without the dean and his nipple. And for someone, this will be happiness.

And another will wake up in the morning and forgive his beloved roommate for the dirty dishes. Or will not forgive and will be offended. And then will definitely sulk for a week and make a serious face when they meet. And after that, back down, talk and find out. Then spread some rumor so that everyone would say in the smoking room in the morning, "You know..." or "Gossip-gossip" and widen their eyes. By the end of the day, run around the building and talk about losing weight in your ass. Bully all the skinny girls and hate them somewhere deep in your subconscious for being able to eat so much and not get fat. On Friday, stand on the scales or look at an old photo or in the mirror, and with puppy joy realize what happened, and suck it skinny bitches, but my ass will be thin. And for someone else, this will be happiness.

A third will read a letter from a young friend (well, why is he old?), who is now abroad and is starting to live anew. She will read it and worry, with a little pinch of envy, that he is there on a bicycle and around the baroque and renaissance with fat stone women on them. And then she will understand the complete futility and insipidity of all this, if there is no one to share it with. That these bridges are not bridges, if there is no one to walk across them holding hands with, and the height of this tower is not so great, if you do not care who points at it. And how tasteless gossip and vegetables are here. And she will want him back, and she will go and come. And for the third it will be happiness.

And I will not care about Russian birch trees, and I will feel like a child and probably commit suicide there. Someday it must end. But I cannot even call my mother because everything is so confusing, and the old formula will never work again, although the number of invented qualities has not increased. And I will go and tell the whole truth, starting with the fact that it was I who broke the photo developer machine at six years old, and not my brother, despite my very convincing lies, and I will buy a ticket for the next ballistic missile to Novosibirsk. And for me, it will be happiness.

In one of the cool computer games of recent times, under certain circumstances, the game can be finished in such a way that the great nothingness will allow you to give happiness to everyone in abundance. So as not to offend anyone. Make a wish now, and either I will be smashed by an explosion of an atomic bomb from Iran, or I will end up where I want most now.''

The sensation that the life over there is passing by that the most important life events and achievements are happening without you, the FOMO will be a part of your life forever if you are a migrant. Your friends getting married, having children, your siblings getting a job or a degree, the itching in your head, that you are missing on something that really matters, something happening across the globe is unbearable. Especially in comparison with how bland your social life is when you are a freshling.