family

Taxi driver story

Photo by Mourad Saadi on Unsplash

I admit I don’t like a few things in this life. One of them is small talk with unfamiliar people. Exceptions are the moments of excellent mood! Starting from last year, I keep pushing my borders. It’s time to get finally used to what profession I chose, to let my inner journalist start flourishing.

The second thing is to take a ride by taxi. We live in a country where there tons of cases associated with taxi drivers. The frequency of thefts of women is simply frightening.

It was a little bit scary for me to combine conversations with strangers (mostly with men), with a taxi ride. With the seventh attempt to find out an interesting story related to a person’s detail, I still succeeded!

Taking yet another car, I noticed, compared to the previous ones, brilliant cleanliness in the salon. I think, I even smelled the leather of fresh seats. No extra accessories, everything is strictly functional. But one thing immediately caught my attention. A small plastic token hanging on the mirror, which depicted a crossed-out cigarette.

Trying not to put pressure on a person with my questions, somehow I got the story little by little. The driver (let’s call him Alex) got it after the tragic events in his life. His older brother recently passed away after losing his fight against lung cancer.

The examination revealed that cancer metastases enveloped Alex’s brother organs like a web. The lungs, like a flying butterfly, got stuck in this web, condemning themselves to inevitable death.

Lung cancer was a genetically transmitted disease from relatives of Alex’s parents. From the age of fourteen, he had smoked 7-9 cigarettes. The loss of his brother made him rethink his state of health. Thinking about his children, Alex decided to play it safe and begin treatment to get rid of a bad habit.

It is incredibly difficult to get rid of such a bad habit as smoking, but looking at this seemingly «plain accessory» in the car before smoking reminds Alex of his brother and possibly dangerous consequences of smoking.

The hero I want to be

#10yearschallange

I think you already heard of it. Everyone post pictures by the difference of ten years of themselves. I think it’s fun to look at those pictures and see how someone totally (or not really) changed externally.

But how all of them have changed internally?

I want to become some kind of hero in ten years. A hero to my family, my nephew, friends, loved ones – a hero to myself. Nothing dramatic, just I have a huge excitement from one thought of how I’ll change in ten years.

In ten years I will be 28. That is crazy for me, especially now when you just starting to dive into the sea of adult life. I never liked to say something in advance about my future, but I’ll try it. Let me paint this picture for you.

I want to fulfill my future dreams. My dreams are about fulfilling success in my future career. I want to learn how to use my voice and how to express colorfully, yet ethically, all of my thoughts that I want the world to know. And maybe I’ll enter the number of human beings who left their own legacy. (See? Nothing special or dramatic.)  

. My dreams are about fulfilling success in my future career. I want to learn how to use my voice and how to express colorfully, yet ethically, all of my thoughts that I want the world to know. And maybe I’ll enter the number of human beings who left their own legacy. (See? Nothing special or dramatic.)  

When you are already 28, I think it is time to think about creating a family or maybe already having it all. I never considered myself as a girl who wants to marry and have kids. I never wanted to be a wife and never set it as a priority or a purpose of my whole life. But I think that is wonderful to have someone who you truly love. To the question “What would you do for love?”, I always answer: “I would have children.”

One of my main goals is to be better. Become better in everything I want to. I aspire to overcome my anxiety and encourage myself to be bolder, brighter and fierce. I’m getting on my way to the braver version of myself and I am already enjoying the change!

I wish I am a hero to my little nephew. This little baby boy melts my heart every time when he calls me by my name. I want to teach him how to be strong and vulnerable at the same time. I don’t want him to be raised in an atmosphere of toxic masculinity. I want to show him how to treat people with kindness.

I thought of that it is impossible to stay true to your goals. I think I was afraid of such drastic changes. But now I get all excited and ready to face all of the opportunities and all the pain that I will turn into my remedy.

Viva la Vida!

Woman (exclamation mark).

My name is Aidana, as you already know. I am a kazakh. From my mother language “Aidana” stands for two things. The first syllable “ai” translates as the moon, second “dana” means wise or smart. Also, from the Arabic language, if I’m not mistaken, it means “pearl”.


The correct pronunciation of my name.

My name was given by my older sister. She actually proposed a list of names and my mother picked “Aidana”. So, my name truly describes me.

I was a very shy, quiet, short-spoken child. But, what I want to point out, is that I was born and raised by the generation of women in my family. Women in my family are the strongest, phenomenal, marvelous, smartest and simply irreplaceable human beings I’ve ever seen in my life.

Yes, I want to talk about women today!

Woman. What a beautiful word. I am amazed and inspired by women every single second of my life.

As I was saying, I’m raised by the generation of women. Matriarchat always reigned in our household, represented by my grandmother, mother, aunt, and sister. This is the four figures that I always look up to this day.

My mother’s name is Saule. She is indescribable in words. Powerful is the word for her. Why powerful? Because she is a human representation of the power of the mind. Everything she puts her mind into comes to life immediately. Every day I learn vital lessons from her. My favorite is about trusting to yourself and do the work by yourself, for yourself only. Of course, we have friends and people in our lives we can count on, but they won’t build your life and dreams for you. If you like something and want it, then get it.

Our first selfie with my mom, back in ’06

And my mother always followed this advice that she gave to me. She is a strong and outstanding businesswoman. I am brave enough to state this: my mother is an image of a modern woman. I am looking forward to becoming, at least, a part of her in the future.

I can’t describe how proud I am of my aunt and sister. My aunt is a physicist and natural philosopher. How cool is that?! I mean, I always tell people that if I had the ability to understand science and calculations, I would become a nuclear physicist or something else. In school, I always had problems with algebra, geometry, and physics, and I would be jealous (in a good way) of people who could easily understand trigonometry or what isotopes are!

My sister is an economist, who is currently getting a degree in microeconomics while raising her 2-year-old son! I don’t know what this is, but I am extremely inspired by her.

And of course, the queen of our kingdom – my grandmother. She is among the people that are called “tough cookie”. She was born during the World War II, lost her family, parents, home, property, but managed to raise her two little brothers and become a wonderful, sweet and loving person, despite all the difficulties. I was always amazed by the fact of how people born and raised during the war, who witnessed all the horror, caused by human race itself, still grown as happy, cheerful and hardworking people we know today.

Winter of 2001. Grandma holding me.

These women are all still with me and I love them with all my heart. I’m sure anyone could point out to the phenomenal woman in their life and that’s wonderful. Shout out to all the mothers, sisters, aunts, daughters, girlfriends, wives, because they are killing it every single day! Here’s to generations of physicists, astronauts, economists, artists, writers, models, university graduates. Here’s to generations of strong and independent women across the globe.