I only had 2 relationships. The first one lasted for 5 years and the last one lasted for 15 years. After 20 years, I am single again now. It’s a new territory for me, to exist alone. It’s like a drug addict who finds himself suddenly cut off from the supply and has to go through the period of detoxification. For the first 3 weeks, I was going crazy. It was very hard to do things on your own, for yourself, instead of for two people. The pain was not only mental but also physical.
I was growing up in Slovakia, as a boy with feminine side. I was fine with my own identity but had to deal with ignorance of people, even bullying from classmates. At the age of 19, I left my parents and moved in with my first boyfriend in another Slovakian city. Later we moved together to Prague. It was good time. We found new careers, made new friends, and I was very happy. But we were both young and uncompromising, with different expectations of life. Perhaps we were not meant to be partners forever.
Then I met Aleš. Aleš told me that he fell in love with me at the first sight. I was still in the relationship where I was not really happy. I am someone who always has difficulty to say what I want so it took 2 months before we finally got together and started a new chapter in our lives. We got along very well and I was very happy for a long time. He supported me very much even when I was doing my crazy art project that attracted controversies and hate from conservative groups. We loved each other a lot and we could rely on each other, for almost everything. In people’s eyes, we were the ideal couple.
After many years together we decided to buy a flat together. We made a home for two of us and for our little lady dog. At that time, when everything was going great I started to feel unhappy, demotivated, I had no energy, I was depressed. Why? I had two jobs I love – yoga and photography – partner who loved me and a home. Sometimes I was joking that this is a place where I am going to die. But deep inside I was really asking myself if this is it? This is the end? It’ll be like this forever? Do I really love my partner so much I can spend the rest of my life with him? Now I can be honest I was not sure. I always knew it and tried to fool myself. A therapist told me recently it’s called “riding a dead horse”. And only thing you can do is dismount. I wasn’t able to do it for few years. I thought I am not strong enough. But it happened. After two years of me cheating my partner, trying to bring a dead horse to life.
Now I am recovering. Trying to learn how to exist on my own. But I am open to everything. I know I don’t want to be alone and I am not thinking about the future. As a yoga teacher I try to be present. To enjoy a nice moments, not worrying about what is coming.