Immigration feels like a complete unraveling of the self. Once you close the door of your home to seek a better life, new emotions, or whatever it is out there, you are entering this endless race of finding the home again.
Sometimes I think about home as a place where I grew up and then childhood memories make you feel small and home feels so warm but distant.
Sometimes I think about home as an abstract concept, both existing and non-existent simultaneously. A place I'm yet to create, where my family will find happiness and sanctuary.
Sometimes I dream about home as a place with no neighbors. And by saying so I mean neighbors in a geopolitical sense. A life with no fear and anxiety. No threat of war, and no need to raise national awareness which later can become a basis for genocide conducted by the neighbor. And then I feel like there is more truth in fighting for the right to live with a volcano, not people.
But what I really have by now is a limbo. And my conscious is lost in finding the answers. Can returning home make things feel real again? Can I forge a home elsewhere on this planet without regretting my decision to immigrate? Is there truly a safe haven for me, or am I destined to never feel secure anywhere?
I am a broken vase and I need to fix the cracks in aspiration of non-attachment, acceptance of change, and fate.
Photographs by Olha Lobazova
