War.

My honest, chaotic thoughts

The airport was bombed. One person was injured.
A little girl died in her bed; a rocket flew through her window.
The airport fuel tanks were hit. It’s been 8 hours, and the fire is still burning.
The sky is black.
Two people died.
Two more people died.
Nine were injured.
Six traitors were captured; they betrayed their own country.
Fourteen more traitors were captured, and some are missing.
New missile types appeared.
Ten more people were injured.

These are facts we have lived through in a span of weeks. Every day we wake up to new, terrifying ways our country is being tortured. We sleep to the sounds of sirens, which have become familiar at this point.

Yet we have maintained our routines. We go out, we shop, we work out, we go to work. We are living our lives as if there are no missiles flying over our heads and fires being put out all around us.

This juxtaposition is so unsettling, and it keeps me tossing every night. But what else is there for us to do?

My heart physically hurts. Every time I hear bad news, I feel the slash in my heart. It’s not a wound known to the eye, but it is there. I have to put my hand over my heart and remind myself to breathe. 

So many gashes lately. So frequent. My heart does not get used to it, it hurts more every time.

I worry a lot. About my family. About my country.
What if we had to flee? Is this even a possibility? My brain is incapable of imagining such a reality, even though I try to train it to,  just in case it happens, so I am ready. 

It’s a self-defense mechanism, preparing for the worst. 

Except the worst is not a creation of my anxiety, it is a real possibility. 

But I fail to imagine it. I don’t think I would be able to bear it or weather it, even just entertaining the thought in my mind. For the sake of self-preparation, my brain has refused to accept it. So what if it does happen? Then what?

I worry about my sisters the most.
I worry about my father, and all fathers who have actually lived through war before.

Alongside all those gruesome worries, I also worry about my life.

I worry about my PhD pursuits and how delayed I am because of this war.
I worry about the time that I have spent unproductively. Productivity, to me, is working, studying, and earning.
I worry about how much my life has changed, and every time I try to adjust myself to the change, something drastic happens, and I need to adjust again, except I haven’t adjusted to the other things yet.

I worry about my wishlist this year and how I will be able to purchase it.
I worry about my fitness goals and how I will tan because I’m so pale.
I worry about my hair color, and how desperate it is for a dye.
I worry about my reading, how little of it I have done. There was a time I dreamed I could have endless time to read, to sleep in, to do everything I can do right now.

I’m worried about how stupid I am to even have those thoughts. But is it stupidity? Or optimism? Or survival tactics?

I’m so worried about how little I have prepared. When things actually get bad… do I even want to leave?

I feel myself suddenly alert when those around me speak of doomsday prepping; what they have done in preparation for water supply shortages, what if the electricity is shut off?
What happens if credit cards stop working?
Should we store cash?
But in what currency? (The heartbreak to even consider this, my heart is breaking. I can hear the shattering in between these conversations.)
What properties do we have abroad?
Where would we go first?

I’m so overwhelmed by these conversations that my mind turns them humorous. I think it’s defending itself. I laugh about what I would do for work if we were poor and our degrees were deemed invalid.

Yet…

I’m paralyzed. I feel stuck. Even if I force myself to get out of bed and live, internally, I am stuck.
I feel anywhere but the present. I’m not even tethered by the light string that once held me to the now, I’m floating somewhere very far away.

I think we underestimate how powerful we are as human beings. With the grace of God, we can and have survived a lot. In these times, we can lose everything, but we cannot lose ourselves.

I am losing myself. 

She’s far away. 

Pieces of me floating all over. 

I need to collect myself… and focus on that.

Right?

Nothing feels valid anymore. Whose validation do I need to feel better?

We have God.
We have God.

We have God.

God is on our side.
God sees and knows.
God has a greater plan for us than we can ever imagine.
God is protecting us.
God will guide us.
God loves me.

I really needed to put these thoughts down. They were weighing me down, so I wrote them here.