When people talk about the history of Cyprus, I think it is important to remember that different communities have different memories and experiences. My intention is not to tell anyone what they should believe, but simply to share how I understand the history I grew up hearing about.

Both Rum Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are Cypriots. We are not simply people from Greece or Turkey living on the island. Our families have lived in Cyprus for generations, and our identity is deeply connected to this land. We have our own culture, memories, traditions, and way of life.

Before the division of Cyprus, my grandfather and many other people’s grandparents spoke both Turkish and Greek. Some Turkish Cypriot grandparents did not even speak Turkish, while some Rum Cypriot families spoke little or no Greek and spoke Turkish instead. People lived in the same communities, spoke each other’s languages, knew each other, and shared everyday life.

That part of our history is very meaningful to me because it shows how connected our communities once were.

Cyprus also has a long and complicated history. Britain administered the island from 1878 until Cyprus became an independent republic in 1960. Turkey, Greece, and Britain were then connected to the arrangements surrounding the new Republic of Cyprus.

After the island was divided, one part became part of the European Union, while the other became the internationally unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). And I am one of the people who live on that side of the island.

I find this incredibly sad. Because of decades of political and diplomatic disputes, we somehow remain unable to reunite. And I cannot help but think about how absurd this feels on a personal level. Our grandparents were born, lived, and died on the same island. Yet today, we are separated by a border.

There is another complicated part of this, too. If your parents are Cypriot and you were born in Cyprus, you may be eligible for citizenship of the Republic of Cyprus, which is an EU member state. The Republic of Cyprus is internationally recognized, while the TRNC is recognized only by Turkey and maintains its own separate institutions and identity documents.

But the situation becomes much more complicated when one of your parents is Turkish. There are people whose mothers or fathers are Cypriot, yet because of their Turkish parentage, they may face difficulties or restrictions in obtaining citizenship of the Republic of Cyprus. So even something as fundamental as your identity and your right to belong can become tangled in politics.

That is what feels so frustrating to me.

You can be born on the same island, share the same history, the same grandparents, the same culture, and still find yourself on different sides of a political reality that you never chose.

Sometimes, it feels like we are constantly trying to prove that we belong somewhere — while the island itself has always been our home.

And perhaps the saddest part is that, despite all these borders, documents, diplomatic disputes, and political definitions, the land remembers that we were once simply people of the same island. I know the hate, but this hate must have fade and be one.

The years that followed brought difficult experiences, tensions, violence, separation, and loss for people from both Cyprus has always had enormous potential. Our island was known for its agriculture, citrus, olive trees, and beautiful natural landscape.

Our olive trees and other valuable trees were considered an important part of our land and heritage. I remember hearing from my family that trees were individually documented and that cutting down certain protected trees was not allowed by law. This shows how much importance our communities placed on the land, agriculture, and the natural wealth of Cyprus.

“A magnificent 700-year-old olive tree, standing 20 metres tall—a living piece of Cyprus’s history.”

The events of 1974 are remembered differently by different people. Many Turkish Cypriots remember Turkey’s intervention through the experience of protection and fear at that time. Other Cypriots have their own memories and feelings about those events. I believe that we can acknowledge these different experiences without disrespecting one another.

For many years, ordinary Cypriots could not freely cross from one side of the island to the other. Before the crossing points opened in 2003, generations of people grew up separated from parts of their own island and from people who had once been their neighbours, friends, or relatives. And I know neighbors who haven’t seen each other over a 10 year and when The gates were open. I know that many people cried and hugged each other.

This is especially emotional for me because I heard these stories from my own family. Today, being able to cross between the two sides, visit different parts of Cyprus, and meet people from the other community is something I genuinely appreciate. At the same time, it is sad to think about how many years were lost.

I sometimes wonder what Cyprus could have looked like if we had found a peaceful way for both communities to share the island and feel secure and represented. Perhaps some of the separation and suffering could have been avoided. We cannot change what happened, and I do not believe that blaming one another today can change the past.

But perhaps the future is different.

Cyprus has always had enormous potential. Our island has beautiful land, agriculture, citrus, olive trees, and a long tradition of people working with and protecting the land around them. There was so much potential for Cyprus to grow and develop in its own unique way.

Sometimes I think about what our island could have become if we had remained more connected and had been able to develop together. But what happened has happened. We cannot change yesterday, but we can still have hope for tomorrow.

There is also a village near Nicosia where Rum Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots still live together. There are schools, coffeehouses, and ordinary people sharing everyday life as neighbours. This the only village that after the EOKA attack that didn’t fall apart and people has no hate with each others I have never been there, but it is one of the places I would most like to visit.

I would love to see Cypriots from both communities living together. To me, that would be a beautiful reminder of what our island has always been capable of.

I respect both Turkey and Greece, and I respect their people and their historical connections with Cyprus. But respecting our neighbours does not mean that we are the same as them. Turkish Cypriots and Rum Cypriots have their own identity, history, culture, and connection to this island.

We are Cypriots.

We can have different languages, traditions, and backgrounds and still share the same home. We do not have to erase anyone’s identity or history in order to live peacefully together.

I hope future generations can learn from everything that happened before us. I hope they can remember the things that connected us as well as the things that separated us.

Maybe we cannot bring back everything that was lost, but we can still build something better.

Cyprus is our home. And I hope that one day we can focus more on what connects us than on what separates us.

(Something a little different from what I usually share.

I hope you enjoy reading it. Sharing a piece of my thoughts and perspective with others feels special.

Thank you for giving me your time.) 🤍🩷

From my perspective;

Dreams are one of the most mysterious parts of being human. They aren’t just random images we forget when we wake up. Sometimes they feel like puzzles that ask us to think long after they’ve ended.

What fascinates me most is how our minds can remember things we don’t even realize we’ve stored. A small object, a passing face, or a single positive moment from years ago can suddenly appear in a dream. Perhaps our brain notices something familiar during the day—a person, a color, or an object—and quietly connects it to a forgotten memory. Then, without warning, that tiny spark grows into a dream that feels strange, beautiful, or impossible to explain.

Some dreams frighten us. Others feel so real that, for a moment after waking up, we struggle to tell the difference between reality and imagination. That brief confusion, the effort our minds make to separate what happened from what only felt real, is something I find incredibly fascinating.

I don’t see dreams as secret messages waiting to be decoded. I see them as windows into a mind that remembers more than we do. They reveal fragments of ourselves that have been quietly resting beneath our awareness.

What amazes me even more is that when I spend the day imagining something, it sometimes returns in my dreams with a realism far greater than my imagination could ever create. It no longer feels like a fantasy—it becomes an experience. Somehow, my mind transforms a simple thought into a reality I can almost touch.

Perhaps that’s why dreams are one of my favorite subjects in psychology. They remind me that the human mind is still full of mysteries, and maybe not every mystery is meant to be solved. Some are simply meant to make us wonder.

Every night, just before we disappear into sleep, we become creators.

Without asking for permission, our minds build entire worlds. Streets we’ve never walked, people we’ve never met, conversations that never happened, and emotions so real that we carry them into the morning. For a few hours, our sleeping mind becomes an architect, designing a universe that belongs only to us.

I’ve always wondered why.

Sigmund Freud believed that dreams are not random stories. In The Interpretation of Dreams, he argued that they are symbolic expressions of wishes, fears, conflicts, and emotions that remain hidden while we’re awake. According to Freud, dreams disguise these deeper thoughts in strange images and narratives, allowing our unconscious mind to speak without waking us. Whether or not you agree with every part of his theory, it asks a beautiful question:

What if our dreams know something about us that our waking minds refuse to admit?

I don’t think dreams are simply meaningless movies playing inside our heads.

Sometimes they feel like letters written by another version of ourselves.

When we’re awake, life is loud. We follow schedules, answer messages, meet expectations, and move so quickly that our own thoughts struggle to catch up. But sleep is different. In the silence of the night, something begins to speak. Maybe it’s memory. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s hope. Or maybe it’s just our imagination finally stretching its legs.

Dreams don’t obey logic.

A childhood home can become an airport. Someone you’ve lost can sit beside you as if they never left. Time folds in on itself. Gravity forgets its rules. Yet somehow, while we’re dreaming, none of it feels impossible.

Perhaps that’s what fascinates me most.

The universe doesn’t exist only outside of us. Every night, our minds prove that we carry one within us—a place with its own landscapes, language, and laws of physics. A universe that disappears with the sunrise, leaving behind only fragments for us to remember.

Maybe that is why dreams feel so important.

Not because they predict the future.

Not because they always contain hidden messages.

But because they remind us how endlessly creative the human mind really is.

Even when the world goes quiet, our imagination refuses to sleep.

Perhaps every dream is a gentle reminder that we are much larger on the inside than we ever appear from the outside.

And maybe the greatest mystery isn’t why we dream.

Maybe it’s how an entire universe can exist behind closed eyes and vanish the moment we open them.

( I hope you enjoy it. It made me think in ways I didn’t expect, and I hope it does the same for you.)

One of the saddest things we can do is slowly give up the parts of ourselves just to make someone else comfortable.

It doesn’t happen all at once. First, you stop talking about what excites you because they don’t seem interested. Then you stop wearing what you like because they don’t approve. You stop chasing your dreams because they call them unrealistic. Before long, you’re living a life that feels smaller than the one you imagined.

Love should never require you to abandon yourself.

The people who truly care about you won’t ask you to choose between them and the things that make you feel alive. They may not understand every passion you have, but they’ll respect it because they respect you.

You don’t need to become quieter, smaller, or more agreeable just to be accepted. If someone only loves the version of you that hides your interests, your voice, or your dreams, they don’t really know you.

Keep writing.

Keep creating.

Keep learning.

Keep becoming.

The people who are meant to stay will never ask you to stop doing what you love.

Don’t lose yourself trying to keep someone else.

The right people will never ask you to dim the light that makes you who you are.

We all need to remember but sometimes ı give so much thing to people who doesn’t earn my trust.

But there’s a simple, hopeful solution we can grasp: trees. We often overlook them, but trees are more than just pretty decorations; they’re nature’s air conditioners. Every tree we plant is a shield against the heat. Studies show that a well-placed tree canopy can cool the air by several degrees—turning a blistering 40°C afternoon into a bearable 34°C.

We all feel the heat together, but we also have a collective power: to plant trees, to demand green spaces in our cities, and to let nature be our ally. As the sun rises over Europe, so does our chance to make a difference—one tree, one breath, one step toward a cooler future.

Little personal fav my favorite tree is olive trees 🩷✨

There isn’t a ceremony.

No announcement.

No warning.

One day, you simply realize you’ve spent years becoming someone easier to like than someone true to yourself.

It starts innocently.

You laugh because everyone else is laughing.

You hide the hobby that seems “too weird.”

You swallow the opinion that might make the room uncomfortable.

You become quieter around some people.

Louder around others.

Kinder than you feel.

Stronger than you are.

Eventually, you stop asking,

“Who am I?”

And start asking,

“Who do people want me to be?”

That question changes everything.

Because once your life becomes a performance, every moment becomes an audition.

You don’t post what you love.

You post what will be loved.

You don’t say what you think.

You say what will be accepted.

You don’t chase what fulfills you.

You chase what looks impressive from a distance.

And the frightening part is...

It works.

People applaud.

They compliment you.

They admire the version of you that required you to disappear.

Success can be the loudest distraction from authenticity.

Maybe that’s why so many people who “have it all” still feel like something is missing.

Because being admired isn’t the same as being known.

The world rewards polished people.

But our hearts remember honest ones.

Think about the people you’ll never forget.

Was it the person who always had the perfect answer?

Or the one who admitted they didn’t?

Was it the person who looked flawless?

Or the one who laughed so hard they cried?

The moments that stay with us are almost never perfect.

They’re real.

And reality has a warmth that perfection can never imitate.

Maybe the life you’re looking for isn’t hiding behind another achievement.

Maybe it begins the moment you stop editing yourself for an audience that was never going to understand you completely anyway.

Not everyone will like the real you.

That’s true.

But the people who do will finally be loving someone who actually exists.

And that is infinitely better than being admired for a stranger you’ve spent years pretending to be.

So here’s a question worth carrying with you today:

If no one were watching... who would you become?

If these words found you at the right moment, don’t keep them to yourself.

Share them with someone who’s been trying so hard to be enough that they’ve forgotten they already are.

If these words stayed with you, share them with someone who needs to hear them today.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: don’t wait for life to explain itself before allowing yourself to live it. I’ve spent too much time believing peace would arrive with answers. It didn’t. It arrived the moment I stopped demanding them. If this essay finds you carrying something unfinished, I hope you keep writing your story anyway.

Somewhere along the way, we started believing that every story deserved an ending.

We want closure after heartbreak.

A reason after loss.

A lesson after pain.

We collect explanations the way children collect shells, hoping that if we gather enough of them, they’ll protect us from the ocean.

They don’t.

There are conversations that will never happen.

Apologies that will never be spoken.

People who will leave without explaining why they stopped choosing us.

And perhaps the hardest truth of all is this:

Life keeps moving even when our questions remain unanswered.

I used to think acceptance meant understanding.

Now I think acceptance is learning to live without understanding.

It’s admitting that some chapters end in the middle of a sentence.

That some people become strangers while they’re still alive.

That there are versions of ourselves we’ll never get to meet because one decision quietly redirected the rest of our lives.

We spend years asking, What if I had stayed?

Rarely do we ask, Who did I become because I left?

The future doesn’t erase our grief.

It simply teaches us how to carry it without dropping everything else.

Maybe that’s why healing feels so invisible.

No applause follows the morning you wake up and realize you didn’t think about them first.

No celebration marks the day you finally stop rereading old messages.

The biggest changes in us are almost always silent.

I’ve started believing that maturity isn’t measured by how many answers we have.

It’s measured by how gently we hold the questions that never found one.

Because peace isn’t the reward for solving every mystery.

Sometimes peace arrives the moment we stop demanding that life explain itself.

Maybe we were never meant to finish every story.

Maybe some people were only meant to become a paragraph in our lives.

Not because they were unimportant.

But because even unfinished pages can change the entire book.

So if you’re waiting for everything to make sense before allowing yourself to move forward, consider this:

Perhaps your life isn’t asking you to understand the ending.

Perhaps it’s asking you to keep writing the next chapter anyway.

I thought they saw me as human.
So I walked away, like a leaf trembling on the water,
searching for my own lake —
one I could paint with every color. A place where souls could exist honestly without fear of judgment.

In her imagination, the water held every color possible: blue for sorrow, gold for hope, green for growth, and silver for memories that never truly disappear.
that reminded me
how different souls can exist within one another.

Being themselves within respect,
maybe then we could live in peace.

When you feel the softness of the warm water against your skin,
it calms you,
but also awakens you.

And with that, everyone could enter the water.
Each soul revealed itself gently,
carrying the warmth
of a mother’s love for her child.”

( my very own story)

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When I was little, there was a time when we weren’t aware of feelings such as hurt. We were children running through the backyards of our homes, carrying innocent thoughts without knowing how heavy they could one day become.

As we grew older, maybe we were pushed to discover our talents too early. Many of us were left alone with expectations we never chose. You can never truly know which path was the right one.

But seeing someone who had to give up everything because they couldn’t afford to continue—while others were out making memories—made me realize something: the chance to start something, to spend your time on something that shapes your world, is a privilege not everyone gets to have.

And now I wonder: am I afraid to try, or do I simply need to convince myself that I can?

Even that question feels painful.

Now everyone says, “You’ve grown up. It’s all in the past.”

But I can’t help holding on to parts of it.

Maybe it’s because the child who ran through those backyards is still somewhere inside me, wondering what might have happened if things had been different.

Two regrets, twenty years apart, can carry entirely different emotions.

There was a girl named Ella. On her twentieth birthday, she believed she was stepping into a new chapter of her life. But she was still young, still learning how fragile dreams could be.

When she turned twenty, she made a choice that felt right at the time. She ended her relationship, believing that there was more waiting for her beyond the life she knew. She wanted adventure, freedom, and the chance to discover who she could become.

Desperate for a fresh start, she left everything behind and moved to a small coastal town in Hawaii.

At first, it felt like the beginning of the life she had imagined. Days blurred together in the ocean air. Every sunset seemed to promise something new. She met people from places she had never seen, explored unfamiliar roads, and built a life far away from the one she had left behind.

As the years passed, she didn’t just move by through places—she grew through experiences.

She celebrated birthdays on beaches beneath golden skies. She watched friendships come and go. She fell in love again, and then watched that love fade too. She learned lessons that only time could teach.

Yet with every new experience, something unexpected happened.

The weight of her decision did not disappear.

It grew heavier.

Not because she wanted her old life back, but because she could never stop wondering about the life she never lived. Every passing year gave her new memories, but it also reminded her of the future she had once chosen to leave behind.

The strange thing about regret is that it changes shape with time.

At twenty, regret feels like a closed door.

At thirty, it feels like an entire road you never walked.

Ten years later, Ella returned to the same house.

This time, she was not searching for escape.

She was ready to face the sadness she had spent years running from.

Standing there, she realized that she was no longer mourning a relationship.

She was mourning a version of herself.

The young woman who believed that all the answers could be found somewhere else.

The girl who thought happiness always lived beyond the horizon.

And in that quiet moment, she finally understood something.

The adventure she had spent a decade chasing was never about Hawaii.

It was never about leaving.

It was about finding her way back to herself.

And in the silence she once feared, she found the strength to begin again.

I wasn’t passionate about anything. Whenever I heard the beat of my heart, everything I did felt enough.

We had a country home far from the village.

Until then, I had never truly needed anything. I was already enough.

At night, the only sound was the wind brushing through the trees behind our house.

I did not dream of cities, money, or becoming someone else.

The world beyond our home felt distant, almost unreal.

I was at peace with myself, yet I dreamed of being like Ophelia before the water found her.”

Until then, I thought the most important thing in life was educating myself. But one night, as I overheard my parents talking, it took me a while to understand what they truly meant. Then, the truth revealed itself.

The day I lost myself before ever reaching my true self.

This was the very first step after that.

Hearing the clinking of glasses and the sound of their cheers, I once believed it was all about making people happy, giving them a moment of joy in their lives.

But if they were to look back through the wine-stained glass, they might begin to perceive the darkness hidden within my frame.