My Two Lives - A Glimpse At Autonomy
Let’s discuss an interesting psychological moment: when does a person start to feel complete autonomy and take action and responsibility for his/her life? At what moment, instead of letting things happen to you, did you become the driver and the designer of your life and destiny?
For example, let’s discuss extra-curricular activities and hobbies such as chess. What criteria need to be met for a child (or an adult for that matter) to pick up a chess book, or go to an online course and dive in on his/her own initiative? Is it a particular age, maturity, circumstances, sudden life changes, inspiration, an in-born drive, opportunity, or simply passion and curiosity that make that shift?
There is probably no cookie-cutter answer, as everyone is unique, but I can tell you that for me that moment happened when I was 13! I don’t know how or why. The only thing I know is that my entire life changed at one moment and instead of being a passive observer of my life, I became an active driver.
With these questions in mind, I would like to share an essay I recently wrote for my Creative Non-Fiction Writing course. You will see where the shift happened for me and from then on I became an avid chess player and a person full of drive, passion, and control of my life.
Some of the things you'll read, if you’ve read my prior work, will sound familiar, but, forgive me, I only have one life. Although … this essay might convince you that I’ve actually lived two!
My Two Lives
Written by Olya Kaye
I often feel like I’ve lived two separate lives in one lifetime and there is no bridge to link the two. It’s the lack of this bridge that torments me every now and then and, somehow, makes me feel incomplete. I’m an adult without a childhood, for my childhood, the way I “remember” it in my mind is not mine. It’s someone else’s memory that I borrowed, or most likely stole, just so that I could feel complete.
In my “first” life, depicted in that stolen memory, I am a child living in Russia. I am born into a happy family that falls apart later but for now, I have two loving parents and an older sister. Together, we frolic, play, fight, discover the world. When my sister is not around, I’m in my ninth-floor condominium spending hours and hours in our grand living room watching people out of our window pass by down below. What else is there to do? I had already gone for a walk with Mom, solved a few checkmate-in-one puzzles, and played with all my toys: the barking, furry dog, Rex; the small plastic lamb that I adopted from a street because its legs were detached and it needed me to perform an urgent “surgery”; the plastic bear with faded brown hue, left out in the rain for too long, but whose Olympics 1980 rings are still visible and, thus, make him an athlete I might aspire to be one day (also adopted because toys were scarce in those days); and the miscellaneous little rubber and plastic pigs, ducks, cats, foxes and all sorts of animal creatures who withstood the test of time in the hands of two little girls. Where are they now?
So, I watch these people down below going about their business and I dream. One day, I will also go about my business – I will be a businesswoman or an accountant, as per my grandmother’s suggestion. But, at this moment, I’m lost in silence, taking it all in. The days are long, yet the seasons change rapidly from enchanting, fairy-tale white to vibrant green followed by mesmerizing red, orange, and yellow, to gloomy grey and brown … and I’m still in my living room, in many of these memories, watching out the window, contemplating the world. And I’m waiting, I don’t know what for, but I am.
When I’m six, it’s evident from the start that I’m not like other children and won’t be for a long time. There is nothing outstanding about me - it’s simply my mother’s choices that separate me from the gang in the hood. For starters, I go to a newly established American private school, while the whole hood goes to a local public one. The private schools I attend change every year because, with the fall of communism in 1991, every new private school is an experiment. Many fail to thrive beyond year one, but my mother is determined to enlist me in the new ones as they pop up like jack-in-the-boxes. The teachers are always nicer and more caring in private schools, she explains, they don’t yell at, hit, or embarrass their students. Ah, my mother - she loves me so much!
Secondly, even when school is over and all the kids in the hood gather in the yard to play, I go to the chess club. Apparently, I’m a good chess player, having won my first local tournament at the age of five, while being the youngest kid. The onset of this chess journey separates me further from my neighbourhood friends, which I stop calling my “friends” within a few years. With all the yearly changes of schools and now the chess club, I make friends but fail to make any meaningful connections. I’m an outcast with a purpose. I feel special and lonely at the same time. Nothing I can do about it. And if no one takes me to school or chess club, I lose my purpose. I am now “special” because I’m purposeless.
In these memories, I have plenty of idle time on my hands. It never occurs to me to do my homework. It never occurs to me to pick up a book, at my own initiative, and read. I never practice chess by myself - only with my mom if she can find time for it, which gets progressively harder as my parents separate and is practically impossible by the time I’m ten. For that reason, I abandon chess – my “special” purpose. Or rather, chess is abandoned for me. Oh well, at least I can speak English, the one upside of going to a private school, although it seems useless at the time.
In this “first” life, everything happens to me. I do as I’m told, and if not told, I do nothing. And I’m still waiting for something …
And then, in a matter of months, my mother remarries and together with my sister and step-father, we immigrate to Canada. Somewhere on that flight across the Atlantic, my “first” life ends. Everything about it, except my mother and sister, ends - the language I speak, the clothes I wear, the toys I play with, the places I love to walk around, the beautiful architecture, sculptures, and fountains that decorate my city of St. Petersburg, the people watching from the ninth-floor, my father’s (although rare) presence, my grandmother’s presence, the solitude, the idle time, the child I am, and even my name!
Upon my arrival to Canada, I am reborn as a thirteen-year-old girl – a teenager who suddenly blends in with the neighbourhood crowd and above all is in control of her life and destiny. I pick up every book I can place my hands on and devour it like a hungry beast! Why did I not read novels and chess books before? I resume playing competitive chess as if I had not quit three years prior. I’m in charge of my homework and achieve excellent grades at school. No one tells me what to do and I don’t wait! Never again, do I practice people-watching for hours. Never again do I have so much idle time on my hands. Every minute is precious – there is so much to be learned! I can’t believe what I missed out on! And if I’m not learning anything, if I’m not moving forward, then it’s a waste of my time and I won’t allow it!
An obsession forms …
Who is this driven teenager, I wonder? And what happened to that little laissez-faire girl in Russia? Will the Canadian teenager ever meet the little Russian girl?
Canada is where my true, tangible memories begin. I know they are mine and not stolen because today I’m still very much the same way I was when I was thirteen. Like that teenager, I am very curious, passionate, always hungry for knowledge. I don’t waste time. I don’t rest – because resting implies idleness and I need another lifetime to accomplish everything that I aspire to! I will rest in my grave. And this is me, as I know it!
As I grow older, this teenage fire and drive never ceases to burn - which is why my “second” life, here in Canada, feels like one continuum from the rebirth I experienced upon my arrival to this country. Here, I am whole. I am one. I am Olya, spelled with four letters and pronounced as such. The Russian girl is Ol’a, spelled with three letters in Russian – a name no native Canadian can properly pronounce.
But, despite the dissonance, a few strange things have been happening lately. Since I became a mother for the second time six years ago, I suddenly started to relate a bit more to that little Russian girl of the stolen memories. I started to relate because I sometimes see the girl’s eyes and lips and delicate ears and neck and that pensive look in my two daughters. The three girls really do resemble each other!
And also, I imagine, that the little Russian girl is now all grown up and is probably a mother of two living somewhere in Russia. She always knew she wanted to have two children, just like I knew! Only her daughters are now teenagers because all of her friend’s daughters are (they start families early over there). She is married, but I’m not sure if happily. Russian men love their vodka, including the girl’s father! So much has changed and turned upside down in that country, that really, she could be anywhere, even dead, like some of her childhood friends. But, let’s be positive …
The grown-up little Russian girl loves her career in business and going to Hermitage and walking in the Alexander Garden and admiring beautiful palaces and paintings and all sorts of art, together with her family. This is her life as she envisioned - not my second life! I don’t get to do any of this, except having had a career in business, because there are simply no such beautiful places here. I admire Canada’s nature and walking through the ravines with my family, yes, but I have this inexplicable yearning to, one day, wake up in Hermitage, or Louvre for that matter, and be surrounded by man-made masterpieces and art. Where does this yearning come from? Must be the little Russian girl! I now feel her soul, her struggles, her joys. She has started to be like family, especially because I get to relieve some of her childhood experiences through my children’s eyes. Could I be building the missing bridge at last?
The little girl and I have also always been passionate about chess, but our approach to mastering and enjoying the game is different. The little girl was served every lesson on a silver platter. All she had to do was learn, play, fight, and win. I, on the other hand, proactively seek chess knowledge and instruction. I learn not by memorizing openings and patterns but by seeking the understanding thereof. I come to tournaments to fight, but fighting (at my age) is tough. Much tougher than it was for the girl from the stolen memories. I also don’t care as much about the results of my games as I care about the experience. And this is how I approach life today. It’s not about the destination, the dreams of being someone, somewhere, but the journey. It’s about being in control, designing my own destiny, as I discovered at thirteen.
And perhaps this is what the little Russian girl was waiting for all along – for her “own” life to begin!
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Cover image credit: Alexei Rebrov
