I wasn't sure how long I'd been in the museum, mostly in the room with Misha. The experience had drained me emotionally, so I was relieved when the museum closed and I had to leave. Outside, the city was unusually quiet and peaceful for a weekday evening.

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I noticed flags across the street—flags of unrecognized territories Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, which Transnistria associated with. Next to the museum were embassies representing these countries, that looked like storefronts, alongside a modern coffee shop, displaying these same flags.

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The sight hit me as hard as my memories of Misha. It was crucial for me to recognize these places. I had visited two of them in the past year, and they all led me to Tiraspol and to Misha.

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Through artist residencies, I'd been to these places, wondering why I was drawn to them: Sokhumi, Abkhazia; Steppenakat, Nagorno-Karabakh. I realized how grateful I was for the chance to reunite with Misha and with myself in the museum. It had to happen this way, through a web of experiences that often terrified me but pushed me forward to this moment. Now, I stepped into a world that had always been inside me.