Change freaks me out

I realize that dedicating a blog post to how change freaks me out is the height of narcissism – because most people are freaked out by change on one level or another, and the truth is, we rarely say anything interesting about it.

But walking home yesterday, maneuvering around rain puddles (what COMPELLED me to buy suede boots? I NEVER buy suede boots! I don’t even care that I’ve been waterproofing them – it doesn’t make them any less suede!!!), I’ve had to reflect on how much my life has changed.

I didn’t plan any of it, truth be told.

I never planned to be a journalist in Moscow.

Well, what would you have liked to do, Natalia? – You’ll ask.

I don’t know.

I would have liked to go to Hogwarts, I guess. I would have liked to have seen the Great Orion Nebula up close.

My imagination is always bigger than my life. I guess I’m lucky that the one definite and realistic thing I have always wanted was to be a writer. Because otherwise – damn.

But I also live in this place where I don’t feel safe. Oleg Kashin was beaten within an inch of his life – in my neighbourhood, for God’s sake. I don’t know what the future will look like. I sometimes feel as if I have no future at all.

And you will say – there is no future. Just the present, rolling in like a wave. There’s no sense in trying to guess the shape of something you can’t grasp. There’s just the street at night. Puddles splashing and calming down again like seas after a storm in the eyes of God. A black poodle on the corner, blending in and out of the dark. And a light in the window of the place you’re coming home to.