Hi, I’m Olga.
When I was nine years old, living in an orphanage, I looked up at the sky and made God a promise that if He took me away from there, I would spend my life serving Him. This blog is part of keeping that promise — and part of understanding what it has cost me, and given me, along the way.
I was adopted and brought to America, and I have spent much of my life since then learning how to be myself: to find my own shadow, as I call it, and to stop hiding from it. As a child I once wrote that my heart was like a little sailboat. That image has stayed with me. A sailboat can’t be steered by holding it still — it has to move with the wind and the water, and trust that it will find its way.
The stories here are told one at a time, in my own words, the way I remember them. Some are from childhood. Some are from the years of becoming a mother, of healing, of learning to trust myself again. My art is woven through them, because making art has always been part of how I heal — not just pictures next to the words, but part of the story itself.
Along the way, my work has taken many shapes — home renovations, rebuilding houses with my own hands, and social work, walking with people through hard chapters of their lives. All of it has brought me to one realization: I am a creator. And I am still on my own healing journey. I share my experiences here so that others may be guided by the courage it has taken me to speak about my life — not because I have it all figured out, but because speaking honestly is where the healing starts.
I am writing this for anyone who has ever felt like they had to hide who they really are, or who is still looking for their own way home. If something here speaks to you, you are not alone in it.
Thank you for reading.
