#About how I turned ages and I didn’t have to pay for it. Almost.

During the socialistic era in Czechoslovakia, there was a special kind of tax for people who turned the age of 25 and weren't married yet. Moreover, the tax increased in case you weren’t married and you didn’t have a kid.

You can’t imagine how happy I am that I was born at the end of the 20th century (still in Slovakia, the country which is getting closer to the Medieval Era and theocratic dictatorship with each and every parliamentary plenary session, which is still pretty much not good at all, but that’s not a topic at the moment) and that I don’t have to pay a shit for being an independent entity who has time her life. Almost.

Just think about it, the government was so thoughtful. You have two options: you will have a kid and you will pay more taxes for sharing one flat and throwing more garbage, etc. for more people, but on the other hand, you will technically produce a new creature who will serve the regime and the greatest USSR or you will pay more taxes either way. You had a choice, that’s fair, isn’t it?

Perhaps I am way too dramatic for this life, but every year, when the 2nd of September is almost hitting me hard, I start to reflect about the year I lived, what I achieved, what I fucked up pretty much and what I am supposed to do from now on. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t give a cucumber (as my Spanish friends would say) what the older generation expects from me to be like at this point. I wonder what I wanted to be like at this age and what I am at the end. A big fail? I don’t think so. A clumsy twat? Of course, but we know it since the moment I was born, so there is no big surprise about that.

Actually, I imagine the moment when I was born in the ugly post sovietic hospital in Slovakia. There were three fairy godmothers around my mother after her C section. One of them asked: “So, we should give Barbora some gift, some talent? What should it be?” Godmother B looked at me and pronounced: “She will be smart, intelligent, with a very good memory.” She swished with a magic wand, the starry sparks came out and eventually fell down on me. Godmother C wondered for a while, but then swished with her magic wand, too: “She will be fun, sarcastic, full of life and joy and energy.” Enthusiasm it was, then. And then again, the first Godmother, the A, looked at them both firmly and said: “Great, so the beauty is on me. Hereby, I am pronouncing you to be the most beautiful creature…” And in that moment she stumbled, fell down on me and the sparks which would normally be in a starry shape, turned out to be in the shape of crutches. “Ooops,” she was horrified, “well.... Apparently nobody can be perfect. A little bit of clumsiness instead of beauty can’t harm anybody, can it?” “Actually, pretty much yes,” Godmother C said sarcastically. “But, uhm, the clumsiness can be a little bit cute, can’t it?” Godmother A asked. Godmother B stayed petrified and speechless, however, after some time she decided to end up the party around post-partum Barbora’s mother saying: “let’s hope you didn’t fuck up that much…”

And here I am. 25-year-old Barbora, writing these sentences, with my broken ankle, elevated in the air so that the blood in it can circulate properly, wishing for my next quarter century to be less broken and more in shape. By the way, my dearest Godmothers, I never had a chance to express my gratitude to you in person, so here is to you. A toast. Probably you formed me to be your accurate copy, which frightens me slightly, but I learnt how to deal with myself, so I guess I thank you?

Nevertheless, it is very funny how the expectations about your life can change through all those years and all those experiences you get. If 5-year-old Barbora had met me, she would have been so disappointed in me. I am not sure if I would ever be able to look in her eyes and tell her “Darling, this is who we are.” She would make a scene, crying, punching me to my bones (she would most probably break one of it) and she would totally expect from me to say “I’m mocking you, it was just a joke, sis.”

Let me explain it to you: 5-year-old Barbora was a princess who believed that there were truly some super great fairy Godmothers who could actually decide anything about her destiny. That’s why she spent her afternoons praying, but not to our dear Lord (I guess he or she was pretty sick of my prayers and most probably he/she wanted to slap me very badly). She prayed under her bed (good old times when I still fitted under the bed) to be the most beautiful person in this world and to be the wisest, too. She wished to find her prince Charming and to live with him forever and after.

Stupid kids, they always wish the same without any creativity. I regret to inform you, my dear little Barbora, but you were a dumbass.

Then, at the age of seven, this useless piece of princess recruited scouting and entered a whole new world full of cutting wood, making the fire, helping other people and being all the time in nature. Thanks to the power of the universe for this change in her life, all of the sudden she understood that being beautiful in dresses it’s not that important, but more important is to look great in camouflage suits. Naah, I’m kidding. She still hoped for a Prince Charming, but probably she already realized that he wouldn’t definitely come on a white horse. One step closer to a normal opinion about life, good job, Barbora.

When I started studying the future simple in my English class, we all had to describe how we imagined our future. We were all so traditional: we wanted to end our studies, find a husband, have kids, a house, a garden, a tree and a dog and a cat. I remember myself saying: by the age of 25, I will be married and most probably I will have the first kid. And I will have a great job as a lawyer. Please, notice that at that moment the intelligent Barbora was rising like a phoenix out of the ashes, right on time, I’d say. She wanted to have her proper great job. As a lawyer. She was ambitious and she already finally understood that there wouldn’t be a castle on a hill where she would live with her Prince Charming. Again, well done you, you smart ass. However, I can still recall my teacher, a young girl, she was probably 28 at that time, a super sarcastic woman with a great heart, how she ended the class with the club of wedding-and-kid-wanting girls: “Apparently I am late for all your plans, since I am still single and with no kids on way.”

One year later, I officially started hating kids and their existence. I entered puberty, everything and everybody annoyed me. I annoyed myself.

And paradoxically, whilst I expect to spend the least of my time with those small monsters who always cry, complain, ask you many questions, scream and are always filthy, that was the moment when I became one of the camp leaders. With a special task from my leaders: to cope with unbearable kids, so called troublemakers, because God knows why, but those loved me most. And I, the grumpy Barbora, was begging my leaders to assign me to the groups who make the fire or who cut the wood, those were cool kids, but hell no, I had to be a psychologist to the lost cases. Maybe, because of the fact that I also looked like a lost case at the beginning and I turned out to be kind of useful and worthy of their attention. Maybe they wanted me to be a new Jesus, to show them a religion of a crazy and wild “normalness”. It took three years and three camps for my leaders to learn that my vocabulary of a well-educated sailor, my straight-forwardness and my strong character are definitely not suitable for the sissies, and definitely not before 10 pm.

Such lovely memories of Barbora’s mind (r)evolution. I am nothing I wanted to be before. And you know what? Oh Lord, thanks for it!

I am not a lawyer and I won’t be. That dream of being a world-famous lawyer died exactly the day when I accepted my place at the Law Faculty. Clicking on that button I instantly started having a constant headache. In the first class of Constitutional Law I was sitting there, watching my schoolmates who were using the wannabe lawyer-approved vocabulary since the very first day and I was thinking: I have to handle this for the rest of my life? I am still very passionate about the human rights and all affairs in this world, but I found out about myself that that girl trying to fit in wasn’t me, but only the projection of the Barbora designed by the teachers from the elementary and high school who told me that with my marks I had to be either a doctor or a lawyer. Shit happens, I intend to hit cinematography. One day I might make the coffee for Tarantino, who knows?

On the other hand, I think that my Prince Charming doesn’t possess the sense for orientation or he relies way too much on Google Maps, which sucks very much lately, because he still didn’t appear anywhere. However, I believe that when he finally comes, he will get along very much with my sister, they will share their incapability to point the directions.

Or maybe I wasn’t just ready for a relationship. I was too busy with myself and my me-time. Let’s face it, it will be difficult to find somebody to share my life with (might be for the rest of our lives or maybe only for few years until we start hating each other happily ever after) since every year it’s harder and harder to find somebody who doesn’t get on my nerves if I spend more than two days in a row with him or her. So if you are interested, I’ll cross my fingers for you, may the best win.

And the kids? Honestly, I am very glad that I don’t have them. Not even one. I am still not finished with my studies, I still want to rule the world in my way and I still feel like a kid myself, so whenever my mother says: “At your age I already had your sister…” instead of feeling culpable for not giving her a grandchild, I feel: Oh, poor you, I don’t believe you were prepared.

Let’s pour the glass of wine and let’s be honest: I don’t know if I will ever want kids. I don’t dismiss the possibility, but… I don’t even know if I can have them.

Nonetheless, to sum up: I completely disappointed my younger Barboras and their expectations from me. I completely failed my surrounding society by not completing my Law studies and the conventions expected from me by this age. But I don’t feel like a failure at all. Because I like the way it is. I grew up to be still very clumsy (ergo sometimes useless), but independent, smart and with lots of stupid ideas and with great enthusiasm for this life.

And although I always repeat the sentence”I hate people”, I have to correct my grumpiness. I don’t hate people, I hate us as a humankind in general because we are stupid, rasistic, xenophobic, homophobic, we want to return to the Medieval Ages with forbidding interruptions, we don’t move adequately and enough and we don’t deserve this planet, but I love all my people who found the way how to show me that this life is worth of living.

And the least, and definitely not least, thanks God (maybe Budha, he seems cool) that I don’t have to pay any taxes for being Barbora. Cheers to that.