Our columnist Daria Korolkova talks about the midlife crisis. And the yacht.
I am standing on the balcony of our house in the Moscow Region, wrapped in a plaid thrown over an ivory-colored evening dress (Empire style, high waist, flowing silk skirt). Long, below the shoulder blades, hair is styled in relaxed curls, and I am worried that the moisture does not lose my hair. The winter was warm, fluffy snowflakes swirl. It is getting dark. Downstairs, the husband puts on a suit, struggles with the choice of a tie. I am happy and a little tense: today I have to go on stage and receive the WowSuper Awards in the category "Talent of the Year". And I'm not even 30! Well, okay, there is, but still, for an award of this level, I am very young. The husband brings a glass of champagne: relax a little. The cell phone rings: this is Nikolai, our driver, informing us that the carriage, that is, the car, has been served. It's time.
I carefully step on the frozen granite tiles and sit in the back seat of our Mercedes, the shade of ripe cherry, trying not to catch the hem with sharp pins, check my purse: I have not forgotten anything, and the leaflet with the speech is here, although, of course, I know it by heart. We get under way. I am tensely silent, my husband is trying to distract me: he reminds me that in just two weeks we will fly to Santorini, where a villa has already been booked and a yacht is already chartered, on which we will go to the open sea to celebrate my birthday.
I vividly imagine how all our friends (and 20 people are invited) stand on the deck, watching a huge fireball, how it melts in the waves, and a barely visible light, like a candle, burns somewhere in the depths (c). The silence and solemnity of this moment is suddenly broken by the cotton of the cold prosecco cork, and then everyone shouts "Happy birthday", and I understand that this is the happiest day in my life.
Behind these thoughts, I don't notice how we drive up to the place of the ceremony.
- Thank you, Kolya, I don't know yet when we will be free, and I have a big request for you.
- Yes, of course, what do you need?
- Please go to my mom. She wanted to go to the furniture store, she looked after something, you take her, and then take her home and help convey. I think you’ll be back in a couple of hours. I will call you as soon as I know when to come here.
- Agreed, of course.
- Kolya, and one more thing: tomorrow and the day after tomorrow you are free.
- Excellent thank you.
In this mini-scenario, I thought through every detail, there is nothing accidental. And the color of the car, and the name of the driver (no Alekseev or Fedorov there), and the hairstyle. I played this piece in my head a million times, first adjusting the production and then just enjoying the show.
I dreamed of this picture at the age of 18, and now I was 25, my career was going uphill, and it seemed to me that nothing was impossible, and my future yacht swayed on the waves, waiting for me to dial her captain's number.
Then the crisis broke out. Then the dollar rate jumped up, and we had a foreign exchange mortgage. Then the company in which I so confidently stomped up the career ladder was closed. Then it turned out that the entire area I had chosen was in decline, and it would only get worse.
I was 28 years old, about 10 close friends gathered in our cramped kitchen, there was meat and cheese cuts on the table, inexpensive white wine was cooling in the refrigerator. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, my hair never grew below my shoulders, and yesterday my husband said that our Korean car, at the age of 8, began to require serious repairs.
I endured this torture to the end, but when it got completely dark, everyone dispersed, and I was left alone in the kitchen, a real hysteria happened to me. It was all in vain. I will never have Kolya's driver, a car of a ripe cherry shade, a mansion in the suburbs, no one except us will take my mother to the furniture store, and it will not be a salon, but Ikea. Before the mortgage is paid, after transferring it to rubles, there are some 28 years left, that is, I will pay off, being already a pensioner. I fucked up my life. I didn’t work, didn’t guess, took the wrong step, took the wrong path. My yacht set sail from the shore and began to slowly melt in the fog descending on the sea.
Almost 10 years have passed. The thought of a sailing yacht periodically returns, and, as you have seen, I remember the script to the smallest detail. But I am happy and not sad, because after that kitchen catharsis I realized that I was putting off my life for later. My every day was not filled with joys and sorrows, it was only a step in the direction of the yacht. I didn't work because I really liked doing what I was doing, I was bringing the yacht closer. I was in a hurry and ran at full speed, not noticing how my friends marry and give birth to children, how the autumn mushroom forest smells, how the dew glistens on the grass in our small dacha-6 acres-mesh-netting-two old apple trees. That is, I, of course, saw all this, but it seemed so unimportant and petty compared to …
I literally forced myself to look in the mirror and say enough. You won't have Kolya's driver. And you can spend your best years grieving for what, my dear, no one really promised you. It was your choice - to come up with a picture for yourself and consider that it will become reality. No, your reality is different.
But no one told you that in this reality you cannot be happy. Because it's time to grow up and realize that no one will bring you happiness on a silver platter, with or without a border. Happiness is something that you can experience yourself.
You have a great family that is always for you and supports you in any case. When you were out of work for six months, you were encouraged and not reprimanded with a single word.
You come home where you are always welcome. You can share everything with your beloved man, and he will never say that he is not interested, or your problems are bullshit on a stick.
Your daughter trusts you with her secrets, shares her secrets and asks for advice, and does not slam the door to the room, making it clear that you in her life are just a wallet on legs. (For information on how to accept the fact that your child has matured, read here - Ed.).
You have a great team at work, you laugh so hard that people from neighboring departments come running with a request to be quiet, and then you go to karaoke together to have fun.
You are healthy after all. By the way, make an appointment with the dentist, well.
You have new comfortable chairs in the kitchen, Irga is finally growing at your dacha, your daughter is finishing school and speaks two languages besides her native one, she is going to become an expert in the field of drug control, you have bought tickets to Cambodia and booked a hotel on Samui, damn it!
You can be happy every day. Remember, finally, the adage about a puddle, in which one sees dirt, and the other - reflecting stars. Only you decide whether you are happy or not. There is no justice, nor is there any injustice.
And then I vividly imagined a dialogue with the universe.
- Hello, the universe, I have problems here: I'm good, I tried, but I don't have a yacht and an ivory-colored dress, my hair doesn't grow back below my shoulders, and they don't give the Talent of the Year award, it's not fair!
And the Universe is …
- Eeee … That is, right now, on the seven-billion-dollar planet, you are the most unfortunate, but everyone else is fine, and I’m leaving everything, and let's restore justice?
It made me laugh. Well, in fact, how long can you consider yourself the navel of the earth?
You might say that this is the psychology of a weakling and a defeatist. That I'm calming myself. That in fact I am a loser, who is trying to cover up his own insignificance with high-flown phrases and an idiotic philosophy “it could be worse”. And you know what I'm going to say? Indeed it could. COULD.
And yes, I calm myself, love, pamper and comfort myself. Because I am at home alone, and I do not want to be unhappy. I no longer want to make my happiness dependent on anything. I want to feel sorry for myself, praise and give myself joy in every possible way, it's amazing, isn't it? I do not want to scold myself, punish and oppress myself.
Is it oppressive to me to think that someone has had a yacht in their life, but I have not? Perhaps at times. But pride speaks, and I try not to let it take over me. Because only pride can make us think that this world lives according to our laws and everything, absolutely everything depends on us. This is not true.
Luck is a huge part of any success. Accident. From being born in a certain city to dating at a spontaneous party. Not a single person has the right to say that every last nuance in his life is one hundred percent his merit. He simply does not realize that his plane was not late, his opponent was not in a bad mood to defend his diploma, the child was born healthy, his parents had money for tutors or a paid university, and yes, the brick flew by.
Our life is much more random than we are used to thinking. And I decided that I would enjoy the good things that happen every day. Consider it defeatism, I consider it a victory.
Hair, however, I still hope to grow (we wrote here about how hair reflects our passions - Ed.).
