The Cicle Of Love

Prologue

I was not a lucky girl, I was not a happy teenager and I did not consider myself a loved daughter.

I was born in Kharkov, a modest Ukrainian city bordering Russia.  There I lived with my loved ones, I spent carefree days and I enjoyed friendships that I thought would last an eternity.  But I also there, I suffered many atrocious pains; at the age of ten, after luck decided to turn its back on me, I lost my parents.  Since there were no close relatives willing to take care of me and my younger brother, we were put into a mediocre orphanage waiting to be adopted, where nuns were abusive. After six months Yuri and I were welcomed into the house of Stefano and Caterina, an italian couple who unsuccessfully tried for decades to have children.  They were two strangers living in an other country who from then on would become our new mom and dad. We changed  country and we went to live in Milan losing all ties we had with our mother land which seemed to reject us like plague.

Getting used to the new life was not easy ; I  suffered allot for my adoption, not  because I missed Ukrain and many
familiar faces I was afraid to never see again, but for the simple fact that I felt lonely and misunderstood by my new mother. We had two opposite characters that very often prevented us from finding common ground. Many times  quarrels caused by small things were the most turbulent and it was from those that came out from her mouth words that aimed to hurt me atrociously making me lose hope of having a happy family.
I fought much less with Stefano, he was a good father, calm and kind but when it came to defending me and taking my part when I was right, he didn't do it because it was not in his nature to contradict his wife.
In all this, Yuri was growing up in an unpleasant atmosphere, full of conflicts and terrible quarrels, where he clearly could not pick sides without facing consequences.  I wish things had turned out at differently at least for him.
Since my family situation was not one of the best, I hoped that my social life would be better.  But I was illusional. In fact I was alone, without friends and in addition I had a few extra pounds that I could not free myself.  I had no one to talk to about my many problems, insecurities and traumas; I was sad and afflicted by my loneliness  and whenever I went through my vast phone contacts list, I couldn't find somebody to call because I had nobody.  And so I would end up falling asleep embraced to my pillow with Elton John as my only consolation.
That was the darkest period of my existence and I thought that the world was going against me in every imaginable way, that it was ignoring my unhappiness and that I would never have found a person capable of loving me.

Six years after this torment, things began to change;  I lost the extra kilos, changed school and finally found friends. But just when my life seemed to be going in the right direction....I got pregnant.