Living through the war

It’s not very close for me, but it’s in my country. It’s in helicopters over my parents house and much more often ambulance sirens in the night: they transport wounded to the city hospitals. It’s in the Red Cross billboards and a small and very dynamic crowd near regional filial of Red Cross, people come to donate clothes and food and and more people come to get them. It’s in the need to check news feed every 15 minutes. It’s in the eyes of our military and refugees from Donetsk and Lugansk. It’s in the air.

Couple hundred miles from the combat theater life seems almost the same, almost normal. You have the number of Red Cross in your phone and you know what to do in case of shelling and what to take with you in case of evacuation, you have untouchable amount of water and food that can survive without a fridge, but you still work, still go shopping every week, still visit relatives and eat out with friends and try to enjoy small things. And this keeps you sane.

We, like a nation,  were shocked by Heaven Hundred deaths. We never thought that something like that can happen in Ukraine. Now thousands are dead and hundreds of thousands lost their homes. But shock passed long ago. This is our new reality and we learn how to live in it.

Ceasefire was declared recently. There are almost no doubts that not for long and it will be broken exactly like it happened in June. In fact it was already broken dozens of times, it’s just neither side hasn’t declared it broken to start a major offensive. What Russians have in their hands now is not what they really want, and they want us on our knees. It’s just unbearable for them, that country that was a part of Russian Empire for so long doesn’t want to be a satellite of Russia anymore.

So I’m living through the war and I try to imitate normal life. Sometimes I comment, sometimes I try to write something, but it’s not going to be like before for a long, long time. Winter is coming and it’s not going to be about Merry Christmas and Happy New Year anymore. Not in Ukraine.