I was only 21 when I got pregnant.
When I was young, I dreamed of a completely different life. I wanted to be a painter. My room was filled with easels, paints, brushes, and the walls were decorated with paintings that I painted in the evenings, dreaming of exhibitions and galleries. I imagined entering spacious rooms full of people admiring my work. But life quickly verified these dreams.
I was only 21 when I got pregnant. I chose to marry Andrzej, even though I knew it meant abandoning my plans for artistic development. Andrzej said that we would find time for my painting someday, that family was more important, and dreams could wait. I believed him.
Years passed. Children were born, and my easel gathered dust in the corner, replaced by diapers, pots and piles of laundry. Every day was filled with duties – cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children. Andrzej worked from morning till night, so the house was my kingdom. But this wasn’t a kingdom of dreams, but of a daily struggle to make everything work.
As the children grew up, new needs began to emerge. Tutoring, school trips, new clothes. Again, I put my plans aside to provide everything for them. Andrzej said that I was a wonderful wife and mother, that without me the family would fall apart. But he never asked how I felt, what I was missing.
In time, the children grew up and moved out of the house. Andrzej, absorbed in his passions – fishing, meetings with friends – began to spend less and less time at home. And I? I found myself in an empty house, looking at the empty easel that had been standing in the corner for so many years.
A few weeks ago I decided to try to get back to painting. I pulled out my old paints and brushes, sat down in front of a blank canvas and – hellip; nothing. I couldn't even paint a simple sketch. My hand was shaking, my thoughts were too scattered. I realized that what once gave me joy no longer existed. They were replaced by an emptiness that I can't fill.
The worst thing was when I told Andrzej how I felt. He looked at me with incomprehension, as if a stranger was talking to him.
– You had everything you needed, – he said. – Family, home, stability. What more could you want?
I didn't answer. Because how could I explain to him that this “all” was never mine? That I had given my life to my family, but I was left with nothing?
The children, when they visit me once every few months, tell me how much they admire me. “Mom, you are our model of sacrifice,– they say, not noticing the sadness in my eyes. Do I really want to be a role model? Did I want to sacrifice so much that I forgot about myself?
Every day I ask myself if it was worth it. Did my sacrifice make my family happy? Or maybe I just taught them that my needs don't matter? If I had chosen my dreams over my family back then, as a young girl, would I be happier now?
I look at my hands – worn out, worn out by years of work. I look at the easel that once again stands in the corner, and at the empty walls that I once wanted to fill with my paintings. And I feel like I'll never find the answers to these questions. But I know one thing for sure – somewhere along the way I lost myself. And now, in my old age, I don't know how to find myself.
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