Born in '89
“I’m from Moldova, but spent much of my childhood in Cluj; now I study at the university in Cluj. My parents told me when I was little, “I want your life to be better than mine…” and I think they are happy for how things are now. They understand that everything is possible, that opportunities are endless. Back then they didn’t understand how bad we were actually living, but now they do. They explained to me that their life was like a wall and you couldn’t pass through the wall. They wanted so much for me to step outside this wall, outside of Romania, and to see different things than they were able to see. Back then, maybe they had no choice because they didn’t know how to have a choice. They were taught that what they were told was it and that was all, they didn’t expect any other alternative.
Today, they’re very happy for me, but maybe sad for themselves. They were blind to the rest of the world during communism and couldn’t see beyond their own world. I don’t know though…maybe they were happy in their blindness.
To me, being born in ’89 means being born in a period of things falling apart, of the crash of communism and all socialist things; it was the time when a new mentality appeared in Eastern Europe. I think we should be proud to be born in ’89 because my generation means change, and change is an essential element of progress. I think my generation represents progress— we are the future.”
-Elena