How can a trip to America change my life?

Completely.

It will turn it upside down and slap it a couple of times from above, just to make sure it stays steady in that unnatural position. It will plunge me into a catharsis that will take a good few years to recover from. It will throw me into a culture shock that will periodically leave me gasping for air at night out of sheer delight.

I am perfectly aware of all the risks and dangers of this endeavor.

Is it really that simple to go from the Russian provinces to America? Western values and culture, supposedly penetrating the most hidden corners of our vast planet, now without distortions or omissions: just as they are—pristine, from the primary source—all of this will crash down on me the moment I arrive at the airport, pressing down so hard that it is unlikely any Atlas could be found to set it right.

But I am already coming to terms with this thought.

All the theory pouring out of books on modern sociology and cultural studies will collide with practice and, undoubtedly, will not withstand the test. It will collapse like a house of cards under the weight of the very first multi-ton billboard with a billion tiny light bulbs, where a happy American family with wide, white-toothed smiles will be advertising peanut butter. Advertising it for me.

Now for me as well.

I am sure that in the essay where I have to present how America will change my life, I won't be able to name even a tenth of all these changes, or imagine their scale. Let it be just one small and not very noticeable life of mine—but it will fall into an abyss, and the view will be blocked by a huge continent, hospitably welcoming everyone who desires it so much.

And I desire it.

I desire everything that this huge country can offer me: all the glitter of pop culture that can be fully studied and even absorbed, all the friendliness of the "melting pot" that will accept one more little Russian girl for the richness of the brew inside it. I am completely ready to dissolve into it so that someone else might also distinguish a new flavor profile: someone very much like me. Of course, one must clearly realize: are you ready to bear some responsibility for what you put into it—bitterness, sweetness, or soy rubbery "nothing"?

I am ready.

Ready for the fact that it will be very difficult for me, ready for rejection and negative reactions: who said I wouldn't be a foreign element there? But with all these far from optimistic thoughts, I remain firm: I need America. Much more than America needs me, but I do not abandon the dream of doing something good for it as well. To tell someone about my culture: about how we celebrate New Year or about burial traditions, about Russian blini and Russian punk rock—that is how I will broaden someone's horizons. To help someone at my job, even if I don't claim to be "non-black." To make friends with someone and be able to give a piece of real Russian soulfulness: with sincere smiles that we can only give to friends, with heart-to-heart night conversations, with an invitation to visit Russia. I will try to compensate for at least a part of that good, that priceless something that this country will start giving me in the very first seconds of my stay there, even though I know I won't be able to compensate for it all.

But I will try.

I know: America will give me what no one else can.

I suspect: I won't accept everything, I won't understand everything. I won't like everything. Maybe I will never manage to smile broadly at strangers, engage in high-society small talk, and at first, I will shock Americans by violating their personal space. But I am ready to learn and am open to almost everything new. I know why I am going there, what I want to find there. I feel the strength in myself to learn something new every day: to expand my vocabulary, gradually gain confidence in conversations with native speakers, and simply in contacts with people I don't know.

I want to go to America.

I know, one day it will wait for me.