Ana Slemensek ◄

Water does not care what´s in its path. It flows and creates its own path if need be. Sometimes I wish I could be as carefree and free-spirited as a river. When it fills up too much after heavy rain it overflows and does not care what damage it creates because that is simply its nature. Sometimes I wish I could carve my own way through valleys and stone. Sometimes I wish I would simply not care about what is in my way. Then I would go where ever I want and I would do whatever I want to.

But I feel more like a duckling following the lead of its mother in the middle of a busy highway. It is dangerous and it might die, yet following its mother is easier than having to make its own decisions and living a life by itself.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the way you live your life. Creating a new path isn’t always welcome. Conforming to norms and sticking to what others consider normal has long been my path. The road was already laid out and I didn’t need to fight my way through thick forests or pointless arguments. I simply had to act as if I cared.

I cared about who I was or seemed to be to other people. I cared about keeping silent when uncomfortable questions were asked and I cared about making myself seem normal. I wanted to be accepted. But as my river started to push towards different waters, I found myself searching for a new valley. I followed the stream of my own water and ended up in the middle of nowhere. Where no-one I knew had been before. I was lost. I was lost because the loneliness scared me. I felt lost because I was told all my life that to be happy in life you needed someone else to share the waters with you. I wanted to row back on my little rubber boat to the water I knew so well. Waters that had become my false reality. But the stream was just too heavy and the vision of my future in those waters muddy.

And so, I put on my diving gear and I dove deeper and deeper. And I found treasure. I found myself hidden deep within the ocean’s soul where it had been guarded by my anxiety of finally freeing myself from notions that I despised and refused to follow any longer.

As an asexual and aromantic person who in addition identifies as agender, I simply do not care. I do not care about creating a family. I do not care about looking feminine or masculine. I do not care what other people consider normal. The reality that other people have created is far away from my waters and the only thing connecting me to those waters is the bond between the people I care about and me.

We might all look at the same sky and walk on the same grounds but my waters are not clear and calm.