you can't go home again

[lapsedmodernist]

well, fuck me, internet in russia. the times they are a-changing. they certainly are. one thing i did not expect is to feel underdressed. for such a long time, american clothing was the mecca end-all be-all of fashion, and now i look far less groomed than the russian girls in the street who look like they could be in a russian mail-order bride promo ad. some of them probably are. i am so unbelievably depressed. i don't know what i expected, but when i talked to my dad about it today, he said he expected that and was afraid of it and that he took my responsibility for feeling out of place here because he was the one who yanked me out of here and in a new country. i told him not to beat himself up, because maybe this way i have a fucked-up psyche, but the other way i would have had a fucked-up life. looking at lena makes me think that; on the other hand, i don't think i would have been like her, and more than that, if i had stayed here i think her life would have been different too. all my friends, the kids of the intelligencia were her friends only through me; i gave her books to read and my parents took her to the theater because her own parents were drunk and did not give a shit. when i left she stopped being a part of the group we were a part of, and ten years later here she is with two abortions, a miscarriage, a junkie ex-boyfriend who put her in the hospital and another junkie ex-boyfriend who is in jail for killing her father. and she is still the sweet girl i remmeber from 13, she does not even blame him, which i think is another form of shock or something.
i feel totally out of place here and fucked up, and all interactions chafe on me, it's a surreal feeling of hyper alienation; i know the language, the way around, even my room is familiar, things keep coming back to me that i would not have thought of in years, and yet i feel totally alien and strange.