Chapter Text
2 years after moving to Ottawa, my therapist asked me to keep a journal.
I did not buy a journal.
Instead, I wrote in scribbled Russian on scrap paper, convincing myself I wouldn't make writing about my stupid feelings a habit.
This book is a collection of thoughts from those scraps: letters to people I would never see again, complaints about a perfect miserable life, and the reality of being the one left behind.
I know what you are thinking. Why the fuck did you write this book? You are a hockey player not a philanthropist, no?
First off, fuck you, I do what I want. Deal with it.
Secondly, I write this because I have been alone since I was 12 years old. I spent over half of my life destroying comfort like it was my job because being seen was dangerous. It was dangerous to be seen in a country that would kill me if it knew me, to be seen in a house that persecuted weakness, or to be seen in a league where vulnerability was equated to uselessness. To be honest, I still don't want to be fully seen. I never have, and I probably never will. To be seen was to admit that my life sucked. Very melodramatic. Very sad coded.
Unfortunately, I also know that the great tragedy of life is that we are not unique in our trauma. Nothing I have faced is unheard of or unexperienced by another innocent person.
So I will share my scraps of paper with the world. I will tell my story whether I want to or not because somewhere, someone needs to know that they are not alone. I hate these scraps as much as I hate the horrid past they detail, but I hope that sharing my life can make it so no one lives the way I did.
So enjoy readers, and leave me a 5 star review on GoodReads pretty please so I can beat my husband in book ratings.
This one is for you mama.
Sincerely,
Ilya Rozanov