Once I was very upset when I was returning home from the English courses in the late dark evening. That day I lost control of my thoughts and body again, and began to have stupor in classes. Approaching the entrance of my house, I realized one of the most important truths of life – losing something, we always find something, and this something is always experience and knowledge gained from it. Yes, there are sad moments in our lives, but they exist so that we can learn from our mistakes and not make them again… this understanding will be of great importance in the events that were destined to happen very soon in my life…
Why could not I just stop dreaming, given that I already had a successful experience of living in the present? Well, firstly, the insidiousness of being lost in the imagination lies in the fact that a person begins to get used to this state of mind that soon becomes the norm for him. Secondly, when I still managed to concentrate on reality, life became very boring and empty; and if I was able to overcome that boredom, for example, with the newfound power of meditation, then very soon I rediscovered the fact that I was a balding guy with an asymmetric lip. I often fell into a state of depression because of this, then I would start thinking about what could have happened if I had done this or not had done that in the past and I did not notice how my thoughts smoothly turned into fantasies and once again the feeling of reality was blurred. At other times, I consciously returned to fantasies, realizing how easy it was to stop fantasizing and live in reality – you just concentrate on what is happening around you and your consciousness very quickly becomes absolutely pure. I believed that at the necessary moments in my life I would just quickly return to a normal state of mind, but then I did not yet have a certain life experience that showed me my wrongness…
While attending English courses, I began to fall in love with one of the girls with blond hair. I constantly thought about her – the state of being that again interfered with my studies, and which very dimly showed the memory of Natasha somewhere in the back of my mind. I think that the expression “Carpe diem” from the movie “Dead Poets Society” with Robin Williams, as well as some of the plot moments of that film, helped me to overcome my fear and prompted me to look for a way to tell a girl that I loved her for the first time. I managed to get her mobile phone number – for this I had to disturb our teacher, who was then on exams. Having acquired the number of the girl, I went to Cherkizovsky Pond and sat on a bench. It took me a while to pack up my courage and then I called her. I explained to her the reason for my call, but she was already married. Entering the classroom, she smiled at me, and the teacher once quickly looked at me and her, but everything else was absolutely the same. I did not feel any discomfort and never regretted anything.
During my studies, I started looking for work. I remembered the girl who worked as a merchandiser when I was still working as a loader, and I liked that that work gave the freedom from bosses. A few months later, on February 5, 2008, I was finally hired to work as a merchandiser – in fact, I was hired a couple of weeks ago to work at another place, but I found out about this when I already said on the phone that I did not want to work there, thinking that it was another company calling me, and back then I could not just apologize and tell the truth about the fact that I mistakenly mixed up two firms.
The work consisted of visiting several shops a day in the north of Moscow and putting cans of jam on a store shelf if it ran out of cans. I also had to send a report to the supervisor every week.
My training day passed with a woman who, as it turned out, had also stuttered before. I do not know if she understood what I was trying to tell her about the real reason for stuttering. Some breathing techniques helped her with her speech, which, I suspect, really helped her to be focused on the “here and now”, which, in turn, actually helped her with the speech.
At home, the bank’s air conditioners continued to interfere with life even stronger, since to two already quite noisy air conditioners had been added two more, which were hung directly under our windows. The noise was unbearable, as was the vibration that was transmitting from those air conditioners to our floor. Of course, in such an environment it was also very difficult to concentrate on the irritating reality, and I was often getting absorbed in various thoughts, which often turned into fantasies.
I had once spent the night at my father’s apartment in the small room; I bought bedding at that time, which was left in the apartment. On one Friday I decided that I would live with my father, since the noise of the air conditioners drove me crazy, and I could not study normally.
I went to his house right after the English courses – it is good that I just needed to catch a trolleybus or a regular bus and drive a couple of stops.
Upon arrival at the apartment I was met by a slightly drunk father and some woman. My presence in the small room did not finish the drinking party, and I could clearly hear my father's loud voice in the large room. He said something about the fact that he never had problems with women. At that time, I still had a deep grudge against dad for drinking and beating my mother back in those early years of my life – which I considered then the main reason for my ruined life due to stuttering. Then I made one of the most serious decisions in my life – I chose to suffer physically instead of suffering psychologically near my father, who could get drunk at any moment and bring his drinking buddies home. Having made that decision, I got dressed, took my things and returned to my mother in her one-room apartment where together we had to overcome huge difficulties in the fight against one of the injustices that flourish on this planet…
There is no need to say that the noise from the air conditioners, which were turned on at seven in the morning and often worked until night, and sometimes the bank employees would not turn them off at all at the end of their day, prevented me from completely “getting out of myself”. My mother and I could have a normal rest only on Sunday, unless, of course, the employees of that bank did not forget to turn off their appliances on Saturday. I was getting very tired then and I remember clearly how I thought that if it was not for this noise, I probably would not have tried so desperately to go living somewhere abroad, but would have tried to live here in Russia…
One day I decided to shave my head. I remembered then that a village friend had done so to get rid of dandruff. I had dandruff as well, and I thought that it could be the cause of hair loss. Britney Spears added confidence to me also, as the whole world was talking about her shaving her head bald at that time. I thought that if she can shave off her hair, then it certainly would not be difficult for me. I came to the hairdresser and asked to completely shave my head, refuting the question of whether I had lost a bet. Aside from dandruff my decision bore another task – I wanted to find peace of mind regarding my baldness. As it turned out I was not Bruce Willis, and the lump on my head that I inherited from my father did not please me also, although in general I liked my new look, but I decided that I would be with the hair for as long as I have it.
For many months I had been actively reading books and articles on the Internet in English. I memorized new words, and if I met some unknown grammatical structure, I checked with my English grammar book, or searched the Internet to learn about still unlearned rules of English grammar in order to know the language as well as I could.
At the same time, I trained my memory, trying to repeat the whole sentence that I just read. At first it was not easy, but over time I began to see the result and soon I could remember all the words in the sentence.
When the next time came to pay for English classes, I realized that with my own education program I greatly overtook the curriculum, and it could no longer teach me anything new. I stopped attending English courses.
Working days went well. I liked to walk around Moscow, from time to time going to the shops in order to place cans of the company on the store’s shelves. All in all, I was very happy then. It is only a pity that I had to spend about forty minutes to get to the northern part of the gray metro line, but I never dared to ask the supervisor if it was possible to give me a closer district.
I also began to notice how time seemed to slow down when I was focused on reality, walking around