I’m writing to you in my future. You’re an extension of me. If you’re still alive and not burned out, you must be about 45 years old.
I hope I believe you’re not burned out.
I want you to read this letter for sure. The only letter I’ve ever written to you… It will probably stay that way. Because it’s hard for me to do that.
I want you to know that I’m doing everything I can to make sure that you live freely, independently. My strength often runs out. I feel like a fragile little girl among the crazy people around me who impose their rules. I feel and know that my life today doesn’t belong to me; it could be taken away any minute. That makes me even more desperate for you to live a different life.
Seems it’s possible.
Six years ago, do you remember when you cried quietly in a dark corner of the room for fear of being alone with your rapist who was calling himself your husband?
You didn’t know then that there was a way out of this. But you found the way out by the touch.
You didn’t accept your fate. You moved on. With a huge load. With a set of rules for you, a divorced woman in Ingushetia. With a sense of needlessness and worthlessness of life. You did not see a circle of enlightenment, but continued in the hope of breathing, exploring the world… in search of your own way, in search of fulfilling your desires for freedom and independence.
And you found enlightenment. Feminism came into your world like the sun that lingers for many years. Like the sun.
Feminism has become the air in your world, where oxygen is given out in portions and so little that you can’t fly. We call it a living wage, remember?
You’ve got people in your life who thought like you. Like you, dreaming of equality. Like you, tired from the patriarchate’s hands above them.
Every new meeting with them fills their veins with strength to resist.
Remember those supportive notes from the women’s rights activists at the next meeting you barely made it to?
You still keep them, I’m sure of it.
I reread them every time I feel like it’s not going work out when my hands are down. When I’m sure I can’t do it.
Remember those poems you read to each other with your friends?
Today I’m saving myself from darkness. The support of my friends is incredible. The whole feminist world is for you and me. Everything so you can live without control over the flow of air into your lungs.
I want you to smile… be always free … and whisper to me in your past that you’re happy.
I embrace you. I kiss you in the smart head, strong girl.
May 15, 2020
Zarina/ Nina.