I’m From The 90s.

 No, I wasn’t born in the 80s. I’m from the 90s… born only a few months after the collapse of the Berlin wall. I was raised in Sofia, Bulgaria, a country that the Communist Bloc rigorously chew and spit with indifference, leaving us, the children of change, dazed and confused… with a sense of questionable belonging to ‘strong roots’ we had no memory of.

Since an early age I was dreaming to leave Bulgaria and make a life for myself abroad. I enrolled to study in the UK. I travelled. I was exploring the West… until I met Philip. A boy born and bred in the the Kingdom of Denmark. A boy that used to splurge on McDonalds and watch the Disney show on Friday night, while I was eating a dish cooked from my mom that was supposed to last at least for a week. My mom back then was a kindergarten teacher and once in a while brought home boxes with second-hand clothes that the teachers were given the privilege to first choose from. Clothes that Philip and his Danish friends had probably thrown out, completely oblivious that a kid from Bulgaria was gonna use for quite some time.Angulus Baby Shoes (here) Easy Peasy Shoes (here)  Melton Shoes (here) // Baby Bow (here)
Baby Dress by ebbe KIDS (here) // Bodysuit Noa Noa Miniature (here)

I got the natural urge to leave when I was 13. I promised myself to study abroad… My sense of belonging was never strong enough to be a reason for me to stay. And truthfully, I’ve never imagined coming back home for more than a week. But life happened and here I am, with Sofia in my arms and Philip by my side. I needed to fly the nest to think of it in a different way. I had to see it through the prism of a tourist to open my eyes for its beauty. And I’m not referring to the nature, buildings, and people that inhibit my homeland. I’m referring to the feeling I got when I stepped out on the street just a few days back. The central streets hidden under the shade of the trees. The fresh spring air reaching my nostrils. My body, mind and soul all of the sudden in perfect alignment with my home…

I MISSED THAT. A feeling that I’ve never experienced but deep down craved to one day get.

A few months ago my mom advised me to cease being apologetic when talking about my homeland in front of my foreign friends… To stop excusing its drawbacks. What mattered, she said, is that I managed to become the person I am today despite the not-so-perfect socio-economic situation down here. Now I’m not afraid that my daughter is gonna spend some time in my motherland. The flaws of my country are no longer flaws. They are part of its beauty. It took me time to grasp that and be a notch more confident that if Sofia is to spend some years here, this will only give her additional  knowledge and strength.
And what about Philip? He loves it here… and still probably sooner or later he will feel nostalgic. But the same way Denmark changed me…Bulgaria’s gonna change him too.

xoxo
A.