Part 13When I stepped out of Warsaw Airport, it was March 1,..

Part 13When I stepped out of Warsaw Airport, it was March 1, 2021. I remember that moment vividly. Lighting a cigarette, I looked around and suddenly felt something strange yet incredibly warm—a sense of home. It caught me off guard. I had only been to Warsaw once before, as a tourist. And now, this city was about to become my new reality.I didn’t know the language, didn’t understand what life here was like, but deep inside, I felt that everything would change. That this place would become my home.I had lived in Belarus for 25 years. It was where I was born, where my entire life had unfolded. But I had never truly felt at home there. I always longed to travel, to explore the world. I knew that the boundaries of my mind were limitless. I never clung to labels, never believed in absolute truths. My mind was flexible, but there was one thing I could never achieve—finding peace within myself and taming my own darkness.In Poland, I had no friends, and I often found myself alone.I remember the autumn of 2021 as the warmest time in my soul, though the weather was cold. I read a lot, reflected even more, and learned to listen to myself.I recall walking in the rain through a small park near my home, listening to „Martin Eden” by Jack London. That book has always been special to me. I remember the moment when the protagonist described love—and how deeply those words struck me. They reminded me of someone I had once loved.By then, three and a half years had passed since we broke up. Yet I still couldn’t let him go.I analyzed my feelings, trying to understand myself, and I realized—I no longer loved him as a man. But he had been my teacher, my authority, and I desperately craved his approval.He was an artist. And every time I painted, a single thought echoed in my mind: „I have to create this painting so well that if he ever stumbles upon my page and sees it… he will be proud of me”.I had turned him into my inner critic. I saw the world through his eyes, judged myself through his perspective. Even after all those years, I was still striving for his validation.And it was destroying me. It was consuming me from within.I was losing myself, and I no longer knew—where was the real me?p.s. photographs of that period