My daughter has asked me many times why I talk to myself.

She doesn’t ask it like a child asking an innocent question. She asks it as if trying to understand whether something is wrong.

“Mama, why are you talking alone?”

I am always confused about what to say, since I always feel like I am caught at the crime scene.

I could tell her I am not talking to myself, that I am talking to the only person who has been present in every version of my life. The only witness who knows everything — the ambitious one, the strong one, the lost one, the woman who left, and the woman who stayed.

But I don’t say that.

I usually smile and say something simple, like: “I am just thinking.”

She looks at me for another second, not fully convinced, then returns to her world. Her world is still different. Mine has been under reconstruction for years.

Sometimes I hear myself from the outside. I pass by a mirror, and my lips are moving. Not loudly. Just enough to keep a conversation going with no clear beginning or end.

It doesn’t feel like madness.

It feels like continuity.

There are thoughts that cannot exist only inside the head. They need air. They need sound. Otherwise, they become too heavy.

For many years, I was too busy to hear myself. There were always other voices — managers, colleagues, husband, relatives, child, expectations, plans. My role was to respond, solve, perform, and be reliable.

Now, I feel the external noise is not so important, or somehow it feels reduced.

And my own voice has become louder.

Not always kinder.

But more honest.

I don’t think our kids understand this yet.

They believe adults are finished versions of themselves.

They don’t know that some of us are still drafts.

Ongoing drafts.

And maybe this is why I started talking to myself.

Because I am still trying to understand who is speaking.

This is one of the most difficult memories of my childhood, and even of my teenage years, growing up in a communist country before 1989, when the communist system ended.

My mother decided to change just one letter in the very well-known, international, and popular name Vera (Вера) to Vyara (Вяра). Vera was the name of my grandmother, my godmother, my aunt, and many other people in many countries around the world. A standard and beautiful name.

My name, however, carries a meaning. Vyara means Faith.

I do not think the name itself was unusual, but it was different. And for many years, I wondered why people kept calling me Vera, repeatedly, despite my birth certificate, my school documents, and every possible proof.

Sometimes I even felt they were trying to convince me that my name was Vera.

Of course, they were not. I had enough evidence to show they were wrong and I was right.

But it was painful, especially when I started school. Many times, every day, teachers and children called me “Vera.” I often went home crying.

From other experiences of growing up in a communist country, I slowly understood something: if you do not fit exactly into the standard, life becomes more difficult. It is always safer to be exactly like the others — not more, not less.

I also suspect that some people felt uncomfortable with my name because it comes directly from a religious word. Perhaps that is the strange irony of my childhood: in an atheist country, I was walking around with Faith written in my name.

I still do not know whether other children with similar names had the same experience, or whether I was simply unlucky with my environment.

Nobody ever asked my mother or me.

If they had asked her, they might have been surprised. My mother believed deeply in the communist ideology and supported it with her whole heart. Yet she still gave me a name that literally means Faith and attached it to me for the rest of my life.

And strangely enough, I have always loved my name.

I am grateful to my mother for giving it to me, and to my grandmother for the inheritance behind it.

I have been called crazy many times.

Sometimes, as a joke. Sometimes with affection. Sometimes with concern. And sometimes in a way that was meant to put me back in place.

My daughter says it too. She doesn’t mean harm.

I know what they mean.

They mean that I don’t always react the way they expect. That I change my mind. That I feel deeply. That I escape into thoughts that don’t seem practical. That I am not entirely predictable.

There was a time when I tried very hard to correct this. To behave in a way that made other people comfortable. To be stable. To be reasonable. To be normal.

Normal is a very quiet prison.

In the last years, especially as I approached fifty, something shifted. I realised that being perceived as “not usual” did not hurt me as much as it used to.

It even brought a strange kind of relief.

Not pride. Not happiness.

But recognition.

As if I had finally stopped trying to sit in a chair that was never designed for me.

I have always had the feeling that I exist slightly outside reality. Close enough to function inside it. Far enough to see that it is fragile, constructed, and sometimes absurd.

I see the rules. I understand them. But I don’t fully belong to them.

There is always something wrong, no matter what you do.

If you don’t drink, you are too rigid. If you drink, you are weak.

If you have many friends, you are distracted and unreliable. If you have few, you are lonely and suspicious.

If you work too much, you have no life. If you lose your job, you have no value.

If your relationship looks perfect, people wait for the moment it breaks. And when it does, they finally feel comfortable again. They can pity you. They understand you better when you are broken.

If you rebuild your life, if you find love again, if you look happy — this creates another kind of discomfort. You become difficult to place. Your happiness feels suspicious.

People prefer stories they recognise.

Not the ones they cannot explain.

I have spent years trying to adjust myself to these invisible expectations.

And I failed. Or maybe I refused.

I don’t know which is more accurate.

What I know is that I became tired of apologising for the way my mind moves.

For the way I sometimes escape reality, even when I created that reality myself.

It is not that I want to be crazy.

It is that I cannot fully commit to being normal.

So I live somewhere in between.

Functional.

Responsible.

And quietly disobedient.

Missing The Taste of Origin

People often ask me what I miss from my home country, Bulgaria.

They expect serious answers.

Family. Friends. Language. Childhood.

I disappoint them.

I miss the vegetables.

Not in a nostalgic, poetic way. In a very physical way.

The tomatoes, especially.

In Bulgaria, tomatoes are soft. Imperfect. Sometimes ugly. Their skin breaks easily under your fingers. When you cut them, they don’t hold their shape. They collapse slightly, like they accept their fate. They smell before you even bring them close to your face.

Here, in Austria, the tomatoes are beautiful.

Symmetrical. Clean. Durable.

They survive transportation, refrigeration, and time.

They survive everything except taste.

I buy them anyway. I slice them the same way. I add salt, olive oil, and sometimes cheese. I repeat the ritual exactly, hoping that memory will compensate for reality.

It never does.

Taste is stubborn.

It refuses to pretend.

For a long time, I thought this was a small thing. An insignificant detail in the larger story of migration.

But I started to understand that it wasn’t about vegetables.

It was about recognition.

In Bulgaria, nothing needed to be explained to me. Not the food, not the streets, not the air. My body understood everything automatically.

I remember the kitchen. The familiar table. The salad my mother prepared with those soft, collapsing tomatoes. The fries she made, which tasted better than anything I have tried since. I didn’t know then that taste could belong to a place.

I simply cannot disconnect from it.

When you live abroad—not as a tourist, but as someone building a life—everything requires interpretation.

Everything required adaptation.

Even the taste.

Missing the vegetables was my body’s way of remembering that somewhere, without effort, I had belonged completely.

Now I belong differently.

More consciously.

More selectively.

Less automatically.

Sometimes I still stand in front of the vegetables in the supermarket longer than necessary, trying to recognise something familiar.

Sometimes I almost succeed.

Why this fragment is important in your book

Because it shows:

migration without drama

loss without tragedy

identity through sensory memory

It makes your story human and specific.

Readers trust specific details.

Not general statements.

Where it sits in your structure

Room:

Foreign Life

Near:

Foreign Language

These two together create a powerful emotional pair:

Language — intellectual displacement

Vegetables — physical displacement

One suggestion to make it even more yours later

Add one real memory, for example:

a meal with your parents

a market in Bulgaria

your daughter reacting to the difference

the first time you noticed it

Just 2–3 sentences.

This will deepen it even more.

Two Friendships: Two Mariyas

People are deeply connected to their friends, and I am no exception — maybe even more than most. Since my teenage years, I have had a deep connection to two very important people in my life — my best friends, two women who, in many ways, are part of who I am.

I struggled for a long time about how to begin this story. Not because I don’t know what to say, but because I don’t want to create any sense of preference between them. They share the same beautiful name — Mariya — yet they are very different, each bringing something unique and meaningful to my life. So I will simply begin. The order does not reflect importance; it is just how the memories come.

I met them both in high school.

I still remember her very clearly — the day we met, and how immediate that connection was, and how naturally I liked her — her attitude, her behavior, her free, slightly unpredictable style. I was different.

She was, and still is, unusually beautiful, with long, dark, strong brown hair and deep eyes — eyes tha t seem to carry something unspoken. Sometimes you feel you understand them, and sometimes you don’t.

She was different not only in who she was but also in the life she came from. There was a tragedy in her family, something difficult to imagine, and it left a kind of “hole” in her life story. And yet she continued — going to school, learning, growing, trying, like all of us. She was naturally intelligent, direct, and honest. What stayed with me was how different she was from me and how often that difference pushed me out of my comfort zone.

She was always late.

Not sometimes — always. And still, I would wait, every time, as if this time might be different.

She was the kind of person who finds the only puddle on a perfect summer day and still keeps walking as if nothing happened.

She got into trouble, chose the wrong boys, missed classes, even had to change schools — but there was never anything wrong with her.

She was living a life that felt very different from mine. A big, shining piano in her home. Traveling abroad — something rare at that time. Colorful clothes I could only look at. My family, in comparison, did not even have a car.

And still, I never felt jealousy. Only closeness.

Even her home felt different — her mother’s cooking, rich and full of flavor, unlike the more disciplined and simple cooking in my own home.

She has been far away for many years. Sometimes we don’t speak for months, and yet when we do, it feels as if nothing has changed.

She is someone I admire. Not in a distant way, but in a quiet, steady way. She says things directly, but never harshly. And when you are around someone like that, you sometimes wish you could be more like them — but you cannot, because you are simply different.

And maybe that is why such people stay in your life.

My other Mariya is very different.

We met the same way in high school, but from the beginning, she had a presence that felt grounding — like having an older sister beside you, someone who protects you without a word.

She had what many girls later try to cultivate — natural long lashes, a feminine shape, and a strong presence.

But what I remember most is not how she looked.

It is how she was.

She didn’t drink, but we were always out together. She was the one who brought me home when I had had too much. Her father was always there to pick us up from the parties in the early morning hours — quiet, reliable, never late.

She attracted attention easily, especially from more mature men, which was not always easy to handle. But she found her way. Today, she I s happily married and a loving mother.

She has also been far away for many years, but with her, distance never felt like distance. We speak almost every day.

In some way, I feel I came to understand her even better later.

She listens. Really listens. She knows when to be serious and when to lighten the mood.

She is still like a big sister to me — not just in words, but in her presence.

People like that are rare.

She is full of energy, humor, and care, and I deeply respect and love her.

When I think about both of them, my two Mariyas, I don’t compare them because what they have given me is not the same.

One took me out of my comfort zone.

The other gave me a place to rest.

I did not learn friendship from one of them but from both — in completely different ways.

And even now, with distance, time, and different lives, something remains.

Not visible. Not always active.

But still there — deep and constant.

And for me, that has always been enough. More than any words.

Fragment: My Daughter - part 1

I love her; she is my best friend, my everything, and I would give everything for her.

We are very different, and I am happy about that, but there were long periods when I was not able to establish this special mother-daughter relationship, when I tried to fit her into my framework—disciplined, simple, everything in order, planned, organized, prepared—and it didn’t work; it couldn’t work.

Sometimes I want to go back and behave differently, to choose another way, but recently she told me something that stayed with me, that she actually appreciates that I tried for so many years, in so many different ways, and that somehow gives me a bit of peace.

She was born when I was 29, at the end of the year, just before Christmas, in a snowy winter, and now she is already 20.

She came into this world through surgery, crying and healthy, after they cut open my enormous pregnant belly, and I have never felt that a cesarean is something wrong—I was born like that, my brother as well, so for me it was just a way of coming into life.

I was able to hold her only for a few moments, and then she was taken away, while I stayed for the next 24 hours recovering from the anesthesia, shaking, confused, and not really understanding what was happening to my body.

Back then, babies born by cesarean were kept in a nursery most of the time, and you could only see them for feeding and for a short moment of contact; the rest of the time, they were separated because you were considered too weak after the surgery. It was a public hospital, with no special comforts or private care, just the basic system.

But I couldn’t accept it.

I lay in bed, asking every doctor and nurse who passed by when I could see her, asking again and again, waiting, wanting only to feel her, to hold her, to know she was there.

At some point, I decided to go by myself.

It was slow and difficult, step by step down the corridor, holding onto the wall, almost fainting, but I still went because that is how I am—I push, even when I probably shouldn’t.

At the end of the corridor, I found her.

She was small, beautiful, and somehow already complete. I took her in my arms and brought her back with me, and from that moment on, I didn’t return her to the nursery for the rest of my stay, even though it was against the rules.

We adapted quickly. We bonded, and something shifted in me—I stopped being the center of my own life.

Then we came home, and everything became chaotic.

There was no plan, no structure, just crying, refusing food, sleepless nights, constant uncertainty, and a quiet, growing panic that I didn’t know what I was doing.

I was completely unprepared.

At that age, people are supposed to be mature, to know how to care, how to feel, how to respond—but I didn’t understand her. I didn’t sense what she needed, and instead of following her, I tried to control everything.

At the same time, from the outside, things probably looked quite good—strict hygiene, proper nutrition, early walking, early talking, sleeping without lullabies—everything structured, everything “working.”

But inside, I was rigid, focused, determined to do things “right,” even when “right” had very little to do with her.

At some point, I also realized that I didn’t want to divide my love, not because I didn’t have enough, but because I wanted it to be complete, concentrated, almost perfect. That is why I have only one child.

She was never an easy one; she was strong, independent, and sometimes very resistant. I still wonder how much of that is her nature and how much I created by pushing her so early to be on her own.

She learned to do everything by herself, and maybe that was exactly what I was unconsciously aiming for: I didn’t want to stay too long in the phase of having a “small child”; I wanted to see her grow, to interact, to do things together.

And maybe because of that, I never really played with her.

I was doing everything else—taking her to sports, activities, events, theater, and concerts, meeting people, developing her talents—but nothing that was simply light, playful, or without purpose; everything had a direction, a goal.

Everything had to lead somewhere.

And she felt it.

Sometimes she would make me crazy on purpose, and she was very successful at it. I see now that she was reacting to something, but at that time, I didn’t ask what.

What I see now is different.

She is calm with people and doesn’t get easily hurt. I think she doesn’t allow it—or maybe she just learned early not to show it.

She has never had anything like stage fright, not at school concerts, not at piano performances, not even in front of a large audience.

She is flexible in her relationships, moving easily between people and groups without becoming dependent or attached in a limiting way.

I know I was wrong about many things—how I behaved, what I expected, who I was during the years when she was growing up.

That version of me was very sure of herself.

Lately, I am learning to see her as she is, to spend time with her differently, to listen more.

And to love her in a way that is less about shaping—and more about letting her be.

At some point in high school, I decided to study psychology. It felt like the next step — university, a degree, something for the future with a touch of intrigue.

I did not have a clear career direction. It was more a personal wish than a professional plan. If I try to recall exactly what led me to that decision, I realize I cannot be very precise anymore.

It was a teenage desire, without clear expectations of what would come next.

I still remember a conversation with one of my mom’s best friends, the one who drove a big crane. She was completely and unpleasantly surprised by my decision and asked me, “What do you believe you can work on later with that education?” I was a very good student, so this was definitely not the right practical path for my future.

I was always more drawn to the softer side of life. Hard facts, formulas, and very arithmetical logic, like physics or mathematics, felt complicated and distant to me.

It was not the university I wanted to attend because I underestimated the preparation required and had limited opportunities at public education, with only a few spots countrywide for smarter students.

So I completed my master’s degree in social psychology quite smoothly, with dedication and serious study, but still without much clarity about how to make it a real-life choice.

For a few years, I wandered around with questions like: What do I do with my diploma? What comes next? Who am I becoming professionally? It was a bit chaotic, without a very specific direction.

Like many periods of my life, this one connects to the fragmentary immaturity I wrote about earlier in this book.

But there was also a process — thinking, searching, and trying to structure what my next step should be.

After several applications, I was hired by a small consultancy. I was expected to interact with clients, lead recruitment projects, and support the company‘s development through sales, marketing, and learning and development.

Everything was new to me. Nothing like what I had learned in my studies. The people, the clients, the environment, how to do my work, how to behave professionally, and sometimes how not to behave.

I learned so much there that I could hardly put it all into a list. It gave me both direction in life and a strong professional foundation. Yes, it was because of the people and the environment, but also because of me. Once I finally found a direction, I genuinely wanted to do something meaningful with my life.

As often happens, the right path was not without challenges. It was a family-owned business, and despite the good opportunities, decisions about your place in the company could sometimes be sudden and unexpected. Still, I survived there for several years.

I learned everything — how to manage clients and applicants, how systems worked, how to survive a full day of interviews while doing administrative work in between, how to complete projects, and how to make sure the money was coming in so salaries could be paid. Most importantly, I learned how to earn my salary, since the execution of my job was my only evidence of whether I would get paid at the end of the month. We didn’t have a special company procedure for salary payments.

I also gradually stepped into new areas, such as training and development, traveling around the country to support projects. Not very fast and not exactly in the spotlight, but gaining a lot of experience.

I liked my colleagues very much. We stayed in contact for many years, and even today I can still reach out to some of them. I had the chance to work with natural, open, and honest people who taught me a great deal.

One interesting thing about that company was that almost everything was created by the people there — both before I arrived and during my time there. There was little googling and definitely no AI. Everything was built through experience, experimentation, and a lot of work.

Looking back, it was probably the best way to start my career. Sometimes I wonder why I waited so long to begin. A small regret about the delay, perhaps. But it belongs to the past, and there is not much to do about it now.

Like everywhere else, I was a little bit different.

It took me time to adapt to what I found a rather boring business dress code — and honestly, I never fully succeeded. I remember a few uncomfortable situations in which colleagues sarcastically pointed out my colorful, not-so-businesslike outfits. I think everyone has a deeper inner part of themselves that is not so easy to change, no matter how much they try to adapt.

After my maternity leave, things had changed. When I returned, there were many new and much younger colleagues. They were slightly suspicious of me, and I had to start again, showing them who I was. In the end, I built very good relationships with them, too.

I was never very enthusiastic about continuing work conversations at dinner, especially during our endless business trips for a long training project with a large company. I would sit there, mostly quiet, secretly hoping the evening would end soon. A family business is supposed to remain a family business, with no time or place limitations.

I also kept my private life to myself back then. Sometimes people think you are just generally grumpy, but you are simply unhappy and don’t want to show it everywhere or to everyone.

Whatever I experienced at the beginning of my career proved useful for everything that followed.

As I often believe, even without hard evidence, I am lucky — not endlessly lucky, but lucky in small pieces that make you thankful for what you have.

My first professional job was one of those pieces.

It prepared me well for my next challenges while keeping me completely unaware of how diverse, complicated, demanding, and sometimes dangerous — or not so dangerous — the professional world could still become on the long road toward becoming someone.

As I mentioned before, I recently turned 50.

My biggest realization is simple and uncomfortable: I am still small in many parts of life. I don’t know how to play it well, and I don’t manage it successfully.

In the last few years, especially after moving abroad—quickly, almost blindly—I began to reflect more. Until then, my understanding of the world was made of fragments. Short trips, surface impressions, nothing deeper.

I grew up in a protected, simple environment. No one explained that life is also a game—that to progress, you need more than effort. You need a strategy.

Everything continued in the same simplicity. Public university, old paper books, memorizing. No exposure. No real understanding of how people live and work beyond my small world.

I never learned that I had to sell myself. To present. To shape perception. To appear polished. I lived a long life without anything extraordinary—and without realizing that “ordinary” is not enough in many places.

The same applied to relationships. I entered adulthood wrong about almost everything—how to live, what to want, how to build a family, how to balance motherhood and a career.

At some point, I realized that something was expected of me—a version of me I did not understand. I didn’t know why I had to pretend.

I remember many family gatherings. Everyone sitting at the table, calm and controlled, saying the right things in the right tone. Playing their roles.

And then there was me.

Whatever I said—or didn’t say—whatever I did or refused to do, ate or didn’t eat, it was noticed. Judged. There were looks, silences, and small gestures.

Later, I was told it was inappropriate and that I should think more carefully about how I present myself.

Again and again, the same pattern: you look perfect, everything is in place, and then one small sentence, something unimportant, and suddenly you are out.

Like a bad scene in a bad movie.

I didn’t understand exactly what I had done wrong. I only felt it: that being myself was somehow incorrect.

I was often seen as the one who fails. I never accepted that. I kept trying to live my way—honestly, modestly, sometimes blindly.

I just wanted a normal life. I believed that was enough.

It wasn’t.

Life became exhausting. I tried to take control, but everything was connected—child, home, shared responsibilities. You don’t just leave. You are tied by invisible strings.

The same pattern followed me into my career. I loved my work and progressed quickly, but I didn’t understand the deeper rules.

On the surface, things look logical.

Underneath, they are not.

You need to be strategic, diplomatic, and controlled.

I remember times at work when it was clear I shouldn’t say things so directly. Not like that. Not in front of everyone.

Again, I was right—and still wrong.

I was honest. Emotional. Direct.

That has a cost.

I am grateful for what I achieved and for the people who gave me chances—even when I didn’t fit. I worked well, but I didn’t always make a real impact.

Sometimes I even apologized without fully knowing why.

Then we moved. A new country, a new life—but I kept doing things the same way. In my relationship with my child, in my work, in new connections.

Still not playing the game well.

Because things are not unfolding naturally. Honesty is not enough. Modesty is not enough. Being yourself is often not enough.

You have to be subtle. Strategic. Always aware. Always adjusting.

And I am not good at that.

I see it clearly now. I am often wrong about what is happening around me. I am changing constantly—but there are still things I cannot master.

And still, I don’t see perfect people. I don’t believe they exist. So what exactly is expected of someone like me?

I don’t fully understand it.

But I will keep trying to become a better version of myself.

Not for others. For me.

This book—this ongoing draft—is my attempt to understand.

To bring order to my mind.

To finally understand the rules I was never taught—and to decide which of them I am willing to follow.

I was always healthy as a child. I don’t remember having fevers, taking medication, or spending long days in bed. Illness felt distant, something that never happened to me. In that sense, I was lucky.

And yet, I’ve had many surgeries since I was a kid. For different reasons, at different times—but almost always something contained, something structured, and somehow routine. You prepare, you go through it, you recover. There is pain, but it has a shape. It begins, it peaks, it fades. You trust the process.

Over time, I learned how to get through it. How to be strong. How to accept help without making a big deal of it. How to wait and let my body heal.

It gave me a certain confidence. Pain was something I understood, and I developed a good level of resistance.

So when another surgery was recommended, I didn’t question it too much. They said it was simple, routine, and important, but not urgent.

I didn’t feel unwell. No real symptoms, no strong discomfort. If anything, I hesitated. I postponed it several times, for more than a year, while trying to avoid other treatments or approaches.

But there comes a moment when you stop listening to hesitation and start listening to what feels like responsibility. You follow what is expected. You trust the system because you are a diligent citizen and take care of your health.

So you made the appointment.

You went in as you always did—calm, prepared, almost detached. You knew what to expect: a short procedure, some pain, and a few days of recovery. Nothing more.

But this time, something was different.

At first, it was subtle. The pain didn’t disappear as expected. It stayed. Then it grew.

It wasn’t the kind of pain you knew. It didn’t follow the usual pattern. It didn’t ease with time. It became sharper, more persistent, harder to ignore.

You tried to be patient. To give it time. To stay reasonable.

But then other unpleasant symptoms appeared.

And with them, doubt.

This shouldn’t be happening.

You start negotiating with yourself. Maybe it’s normal. Maybe you just need to endure it. Maybe you are overreacting.

But your body doesn’t negotiate.

The nights were the worst.

You expect the night to bring relief. Rest, silence, recovery. That’s what we are taught.

But the night made everything clearer.

There is no distraction in the dark. No movement, no conversation, no tasks. Just you and the sensation you cannot escape.

The pain grew sharper, more present, almost louder.

I went back to the emergency room.

The corridors were quiet, almost empty. The light was artificial and cold. Time felt slower there, stretched.

I tried to explain what I was feeling.

At first, calmly and clearly. Then with more insistence.

But there comes a moment when you realize people are listening without truly hearing you. They nod, they respond—but they don’t believe you.

They told me I was fine. That everything looked normal. Maybe it wasn’t serious.

Maybe it was in my head.

And suddenly, something shifts inside you.

You start doubting yourself.

Maybe I am exaggerating and overreacting.

Maybe this is how it is supposed to feel.

Maybe I just need to be stronger.

But your body knows something you don’t.

At some point, you can’t control it anymore.

I was shaking. Crying. Sitting there, unable to hide it.

There is a moment when dignity disappears and only pain remains, when you stop trying to explain and simply exist in what you feel.

What was most difficult was not just the pain.

It was the uncertainty.

Not knowing exactly what was happening. Not fully understanding the decisions being made. Being told that everything is fine while feeling that it is not.

I tried to explain again.

But explaining pain is difficult. It is invisible, subjective. And when you are already weakened, you don’t argue well. You don’t insist enough.

At some point, I felt reduced to something smaller.

A foreigner. Someone who cannot express themselves perfectly, even the simple feeling of their body.

Someone who might not be taken seriously.

A foreigner, pretending to be sick.

Until the moment when pretending is no longer possible.

When the body speaks in a way that cannot be ignored.

There are moments when the system works. When people see you, respond, and act.

And there are moments when you feel lost inside it.

I experienced both.

That was the moment they finally saw me.

Everything changed after that.

The situation was more serious than expected. The “simple” procedure had become something else entirely.

Then came another surgery.

This time, it was not planned in the same calm way. Not controlled. Not predictable.

After that, I stayed in the hospital for weeks.

Hospital life has its own rhythm. Or maybe the absence of rhythm.

You are reduced to very simple actions. Sitting, standing, walking a few steps. Even resting requires effort.

Pain is present in everything. Not always intense, but constant. A background you cannot switch off.

You spend a lot of time staring at the ceiling.

You become attuned to sounds—the quiet footsteps of nurses, distant voices, the hum of machines. You notice other patients, even without seeing them. You feel their presence, their discomfort.

There is a shared silence in that space. A quiet understanding that everyone is dealing with something they didn’t choose.

Time changes there.

Days are long, yet somehow they disappear. You wait without knowing exactly what you are waiting for. Improvement, maybe. Or just a sign that things are moving forward.

Eventually, slowly, things begin to improve.

Recovery is not a single moment. It is gradual, almost invisible at first. A small step, a little less pain, a bit more strength.

Until one day you realize you can return.

But you don’t return the same person.

Something has shifted.

There is less patience for what doesn’t matter. Less willingness to tolerate what feels false. You become more direct, sometimes more distant.

It is not a conscious decision.

Certain illusions don’t survive that experience.

You see people differently.

Some relationships feel less real than before. Some conversations feel unnecessary. You no longer have the energy to maintain what doesn’t feel honest.

There is less compromise.

Not out of anger, but out of clarity.

Experiences like this change you in a way that cannot be reversed. Like a surgery of the mind—something is removed, something is exposed, and you cannot go back to not knowing.

Sometimes I regret how I approached my health. The trust, the delay, the decisions I didn’t question enough.

Sometimes I wonder whether it could have been different.

But those questions don’t have answers.

What remains is something simpler.

I went through it.

I came back.

Not unchanged, only aware.

In that awareness, I saw something I hadn’t seen before.

What matters, and what does not?

How fragile the line between the two can be.