19. The stork was wrong

I never find out if my father found the box of shredded pictures. I don’t hear anything about it and I don’t ask. He still tries to come and see me at school. I am in the 5th year of the Music Conservatory now. I passed a big exam at the end of my senior year and received my high school diploma. The additional two years are now optional to receive a teaching certificate. At the end of year 6, every music student prepares a solo concert for all professors, family, and friends to attend. It is a big deal. But I don’t have to think about that just yet because I still have time. Most of my classmates have chosen the same path as me and continue their studies along with me. Only about two or three piano students audition and get accepted to study piano performance in college. 

I don’t live in the dorms anymore. I commute to school daily now, also because I need to accumulate my piano teaching hours, teaching in several little villages around my town. I don’t like teaching piano, it is not something I can see myself doing in my life. I travel a lot and this way I can easily find excuses not to see my father. When I do see him occasionally, I listen to his usual rants about his life as a composer. I listen to him complaining about my mother. I listen to him telling me over and over how he wanted to have a daughter, not a son. My mother and father are going through a very nasty divorce that has been dragging on for months. They fight over the piano, of course. It’s ridiculous. If I could, I’d cut the piano out of my life, just like I cut my father out of the photographs. That way there would be nothing to fight over anymore and I could move on with my life. 

My father doesn’t have much money at all. Despite that, he tries to bribe me with expensive gifts. I tell him not to bother but he won’t listen. He buys me clothes and chocolates the most, but he also buys me expensive contact lenses that he knows I have been wanting to get. He wants me to like him. I become indifferent towards him instead. It’s because I know that I am getting closer to my freedom. One day, I will not live in Slovakia anymore and I will not play the piano anymore. I will get away, far away, out of my father’s reach. 

The stork

I also don't have a close relationship with my native country. I don’t feel that this is my home. As I travel through all the little Slovakian towns and villages, as I watch all the little charming houses, trees, and nature passing by on the bus and train rides,  I have to admit that Slovakia is beautiful. But I don’t belong here. I don’t feel patriotic. I am not a proud Slovakian. I don’t see my future here. I don’t see having a husband and kids here. My future in Slovakia doesn’t exist. This is a very profound feeling, intuition, a hunch, a sixth sense. I can’t ignore it. I will not live my life in this country. I simply know it.

My family is not religious and we don’t believe in God. We were not allowed to express any kind of faith during the years of communism so I don’t ever think about God very much. But ever since I was a little girl, I have pictured God as an old gray man, sitting high up in the sky, on a huge throne. He is assigning babies to be born in lots of different places. He probably has storks that work for him and drop the babies in their assigned homes. Well, the stork that was assigned to drop me off was wrong. He must have messed up. I don’t know where my home was supposed to be but Slovakia wasn’t it. I don’t want to be here. And now I have to find my home on my own. It’s up to me. And I have no choice, especially if I want to free myself from my father and from the piano. I don’t know how long this will take, but one day I will find my new home.

I believe I am strong and determined enough to do this on my own if I have to. I feel it. I feel it in my bones, in every cell of my body. It’s in the air around me and it’s in every pore of my skin. This new resolution gives me a sense of excitement, adventure, and hope. Sure, I still have a little bit of schooling to do but I can start planning now. Yes! This decision feels right. It’s a promise I am making to myself. For a better future. The stork was wrong but that doesn’t matter. I can surely fix his mistake, right?