Weight

     I can only write about what I know, what I feel and that is the limitation of my experience.  Yet, sometimes the parallels of others and their own journeys coincide with our own and we are deeply moved within; swayed toward understanding of the exactness of the moment we once witnessed or continue to encounter.  Perhaps, my intent is to share my own individual understanding of what has been taking place since May of 1992.  Strange, how dates weigh down on us in forms of anniversaries, birthdays, holidays but dates also appear on the timeline of progression and digression, as commemorative symbols of death, defeat, loss, casually marking the beginnings of unprecedented events on passages of time.  For me, in my 8th year of being alive, or living, a singular event that dictated the rest of my life took place violently, startling the core of my perception.  When a child experiences hardships and uncontrollable circumstances, the reality becomes the only compass to continue further.  Dreams dissipate into a type of a mental storage where a child hopes to return to one day when it all comes back to normalcy.  That child accepts the reality more than adults who have the capacity to rationalize and endure, yet a child should not know what enduring feels like, at least not that early on.  Putting away your dreams for the sake of reality is every refugee's actuality and as much as we drift away to visualize peace and to reflect on the happy days in the past, the core remains forever altered where dreams are derived from reality and not vice versa. 

    

     Recent mass migration of refugees sparked something inside, that parallel mentioned earlier where I can place myself in the shoes of those crossing the borders, fleeting with no specific or defined goal in mind when the only thing that matters is survival.  Refugees get addicted to survival from the moment they are forced to leave their homes, after going through many traumatic experiences, refugees can never truly settle no matter where their next home is.  Home becomes an evading illusion, constantly sought for but never truly defined or fulfilled.  At times, we may make ourselves believe that we have found that security we searched for so long and that they may represent our home but the reality is that we shall never reach home; perhaps the death is the only home we will ever know until then we shall continue to survive and endure.  The gloom, the nostalgia, the melancholic outlook on life becomes so engraved making our minds wander into forbidden territories of the past.  Perhaps, this is my somber Slavic soul voicing out its predispositions for grim realism but at some point in time every refugee will find a reflection of the dark side as the only dreaming he or she can withstand in comfort.  

    

     Flight becomes everything.  Fear prevails, haunting every step of the future existence.  Only temporary experiences are valued because the uncertainty of tomorrow of what is going to happen next can always include lurking dangers.  Better be prepared for the worst then hope for the best.  Yet, we manage to smile.  Refugees are the greatest example of contradictions in life.  Irony is heavily used in the days of despair; even the smiles can be spotted on those fearful, dull expressions.  Everything is gray and gloomy; sporadic and undefined.  Haze is cast over the thought process and the only important thing is to move on, to continue moving limbs because if one stops progressing, he/she dies.  The movement becomes endless even when we are standing still.  Our minds are racing without a halt because that is the only survival we know - the flight.  Twenty three years later I am still running in place, in circles, upward, downward, yet I am constantly immobile.  Around nothing changes, everything seems peaceful and running smoothly.  The circumstances I live in are stable and safe but the feeling of constant fear never leaves me.  It is always there waiting to strike me just like the war did.  Nothing is given, nothing is for sure, but the desire for it makes it so hard to accept it.  How can one possibly remain untouched after surviving and enduring evil?  How does one rid of pain caused by injustice, violence and so much wickedness? 

     

     Change is constant and at any given moment something good can happen.  Restoring the balance and sense of normalcy is crucial in any person's life, especially to those who went through traumatic experiences.  Luckily, we still know how to smile, how to run around, how to hope.  Our dreams may be confined to reality but we still know how to dream, dream realistically.  Being a refugee is ultimately grounding state because a refugee knows what pain and loss are and he/she still can smile.  What is more beautiful than the ability to simultaneously feel joy and sadness?!  Melancholy is life and a refugees get to acquaint themselves with the truthfulness of life.  Kundera sums it up perfectly in his works, where weight of life is more important that the lightness of insignificant consequence.  And refugees are directly interwoven with the depth of survival which is after all the primary purpose of human existence; we just get to experience it more fully.