Pseudonym

With this series, I wanted to explore the search for balance between the past and the present, the struggle to preserve one’s identity in a new and frightening reality, the process of transformation, of letting go of the old and embracing something new.

When I moved to Spain, I unexpectedly found myself having to change my name. The quirks of Spanish pronunciation turned the familiar “Zhenya, Zhenka, Zheka” into “Eugenia” — a name that felt foreign and sounded harsh to my ears.

And so I’ve been living under this strange pseudonym ever since. Sometimes I hide behind it, sometimes I try to shed it, and sometimes I study it from a distance, as though it were some unknown creature…

Even though moving abroad was a deliberate choice, and my circumstances were comfortable, it still proved deeply unsettling. It shook the sense of stability and safety I had always taken for granted.

Then came February 2022 — the most sudden and deafening shock of all. With it came the feeling that my ties to the past had been severed for good: a sense of irretrievable loss, bitterness, helplessness, an inability to accept what was happening, and a fierce, crushing loneliness.

The world as I knew it cracked.

Everything familiar, steady, understandable, and safe fell apart, leaving only shards of terror and pain.

Everything that once seemed solid now flows, stretches, changes shape, disappears. Everything that should be afloat lies motionless. Everything that should move has frozen. The shore no longer feels like solid ground. It has become a dead end.

A reality that once seemed colourful and multifaceted suddenly split into stark black and white. There are no more shades, no room for doubt. Everything has become clear and merciless — every choice, every word sharpens the divide, leaving no way to find a point of balance.

The past tense has only gentle fairy tales to tell.

It is time to pack them into an old suitcase and put it away, somewhere deep in the attic.

I hope one day I’ll take it down and brush off the dust, ready to meet the past with a smile and gratitude. To understand that these memories have become part of me, but no longer determine where I go from here, and can no longer hurt me.