JELLYFISH

"Where are you from?"

"Ukraine."

"Specifically?"

"Sevastopol."

Boom! I feel like a jellyfish, pulled out of the sea by children, placed on hot rocks, and carefully examined, poked with fingers, stretched in different directions. My body tenses up, I clench my fists, and quickly, not allowing my companion to recover, babble, "Crimea-is-Ukraine,-and-Sevastopol-too."

Boom! Mentally, I await another hit. Something like, "But now it's Russia" or "You're funny." And even "Krymnash" (a Russian-language neologism and internet meme that translates as "Crimea's ours"). My expectations aren't fulfilled often, but they don't come out of thin air: I hear it from relatives in Russia, from friends (now former ones), from some Crimeans and Russians I randomly encounter at bus stops, in buses, trains, or at the borders. Thus, a banal conversation with questions asked out of politeness has become an open wound for me. A danger. A scorching sun that slowly and almost tenderly but confidently kills.

Usually, I don't receive those hits. Instead, I hear a quiet "oh" and a prolonged pause. Cautious curiosity. Like with that jellyfish — it has something repulsive about it, but not many people who live far from the sea can examine it alive, touch it.

And that is why they touch me. I hear in response, "I feel for you" or, "So, how is everything there?".

I exhale slowly and say something from this list:

"Bad".

"Too many "newcomers" (that's what we call Russians who came to the peninsula after the occupation of Crimea)."

"Few job opportunities."

"Almost all young people have gone either to Ukraine or Russia."

"Sevastopol is turning into a graveyard for Russian pensioners."

Or I say them all at once.

I see horror, sadness, or fatigue in response, so I usually add, "But my parents and I are eagerly awaiting Ukraine's return, and we're not going anywhere because someone has to greet our return with the Ukrainian flag and vyshyvankas."

I try to smile. Maybe now there's a chance they'll understand me. Maybe they'll get tired and bored and return the jellyfish back to the sea.

Throughout these eight years, as this conversation repeats itself, time and again, I hear almost the entire spectrum of responses to my confessions: pessimistic ones like "Oh well, maybe it will happen in thirty years, and even then, it's doubtful: Crimea is lost forever," and optimistic ones like "Wait, Ukraine will return soon." And we wait.

I wait.

I've been waiting since that morning when I woke up as a stranger in my own home. The walls around me were the same; the green grapes in the window, my family, and the sea were too. But now, they are here for me only 90 days out of six months, and after that, I have to leave because, without a Russian passport, which I deliberately refused to obtain, I became a stranger. A repulsive jellyfish that people shun if they see it in the sea.

As they say, "Beware of your desires." It's definitely about me because I've always dreamed of living abroad, and that's precisely what I got in 2014. I became a foreigner in my own home.

Rejoice, Anastasiia, because here's your proper border crossing (not to mention a four-kilometer walk through the buffer zone to Chongar because I don't have a car, and public transport is prohibited), and foreign money (rubles), and foreigners around you (Russians). Bit by bit, my own familiar things are fading away: Ukrainian products disappear, cafes and shops close, and people leave for good.

Since 2014, we have started to find joy in small things: smuggling "Roshen" chocolates and Ukrainian books, hunting for contraband Ukrainian goods in the market, which we rarely encounter, noticing a combination of yellow and blue shirts, which a neighbor hung on her balcony. Is it a sign or just a coincidence?

How much we want to believe that it's a sign, support, the only permitted way to say, "Not only did they steal your home, but ours too. We quickly learn this secret language: we also hang shirts, carry bags with logos of Ukrainian cities, and learn to speak in metaphors and hints with strangers, understanding if they are one of us or not.

All relatives, friends, acquaintances, and strangers are now clearly divided into "we" and "they." Shades disappear from the world, leaving only black and white. My parents have become highly politicized, and it seems like they're even bigger patriots of Ukraine than me, who spends most of the time in Kyiv and visits Sevastopol only once every six months. However, returning home, I become just like them within a couple of days. Just like them, during dinner, I ask, "Has Putin died?" instead of "How was your day?"

I constantly feel like a jellyfish pulled out of the sea. I'm examined with curiosity wherever I go. In Sevastopol, I'm not one of them because I find this occupation disgusting, and most people around me don't understand it. And in Ukraine, I'm not entirely Ukrainian either because I'm from Sevastopol, Crimea, the stolen home.

Time passes. With each year, I feel more and more like a stranger. Like a dried-up jellyfish, almost nothing remains of me. Except for a stain on a rock.

Last year, my nieces, already born in Russia, started attending a Russian school. A woman at the clinic, holding my Ukrainian passport, confesses that she's seeing such a document for the first time. We get used to rubles, Russian products, physical borders, and even those in our minds. But Crimea is Ukraine. And Sevastopol is Ukrainian.

I stubbornly repeat this at every opportunity. Like a child, I believe it will become true if I say it enough times. And now, when the first explosions are heard, and the whole country, along with me, dreams of the next peaceful Ukrainian summer in Crimea, it seems like I've almost reached that coveted number.

Like that jellyfish under the scorching Crimean sun, I dream of gentle hands that will take me back to the sea. Back home.