DOMINYKA REMEIKYTE, LITHUANIA

March 31, 2019

“I have been working since I was 14 and a lot of people don’t even know what work is, so knowing that I’ve been working for almost all of my teenage hood, I think, changes everything in terms of how people see and perceive me. I really enjoyed doing something and being active, so I started working in a café for 3 years then started volunteering for different projects I enjoyed. My favorite part of working there was probably the small notes that customers left under their empty coffee mugs, thanking me for the service or simply saying something nice. I really loved it and I always tried to smile at them in exchange for the sweet notes which, if I’m not too dramatic in saying, made my life lot brighter. Ofcourse my parents never asked me to do any of it, but something in me has always craved activity and results. The hardest part of it all was juggling my school work, swimming and my job, but I never regretted it because it’s something I chose for myself. I trained to swim professionally and was even invited to the olympics about 2 years ago, but I had a really bad accident during one of my sessions and I completely destroyed my shoulder. The doctor said I would need to wait 5 years before I can swim competitively again, but even now when I try to swim once in a while it hurts a lot. I miss it, I miss swimming, but I guess I’ll wait it out and see. There are many others things I miss too, like my twin brother. Only 5 hours apart, him and I are as close as you would expect any twins to be, and we’ve been through a lot. A special memory of mine happened when he finally came out about his sexuality to a few friends at school, who told the principal and almost got him expelled. The principal told him that he had to leave because the school was a Christian school that could not provide for and deal with gay people because being gay was an illness. All I remember is being extremely livid and going right up to the principal to give him a piece of my mind. It was not pretty, but what can I say, I’m a girl for action. I’ve always been by his side though and him by mine. I really hope he gets to come here next semester. I’m really waiting for that because I miss him.”