Halina, Khmelnytskyi region, 06.03.22

Why I started this diary, I do not remember exactly. Probably, I wanted to dull my fears, anxiety, nervousness, feelings of hopelessness and despair. I moved from my dangerous building. I moved to my family, who lived 500 metres away from me. Questionable safety, but at least we are all together. They have a small house, which does not have a basement at all. When the air-raid siren signalled to us that we had to hide, we just laid down on the floor in a room between two walls. The orcs were 'treating' us, mostly at night and early in the morning, and our one-and-a-half-year-old child would wake up and cry, when we would take it out of the bed and put it on the floor. It did not want to sleep in this strange place, it was trying to escape and get back. In those moments, we regretted only one thing, - that the child is one and half years old. If it was a baby, I could press it against my chest and comfort it, and if it was older – we could distract it with some fairytale or make something up about a game of hide-and-seek. I stopped recording because there was no time or energy for that. I would wake up multiple times at night and then would have work during the day. I would register memories in my head and think: 'When it gets quieter, or over the weekend I will definitely write it all down.' And then I read about Mariupol and realised that all of my challenges are nothing. Yes, there were missiles flying in our direction, but we were not under the rubble in destroyed buildings, we were not being dug out from under the rubble, we, thank God and the Ukrainian Armed Forces, did not get under the 'grad' and 'uragan' missiles. What can I write about the war? I am not from Hostomel, not from Irpin or Volnovakha. What are my struggles compared to theirs?

All of the messengers and social media are overloaded with the same kind of text 'How are you there?' You call and text, people call you. It becomes clear how many friends and family you have. I have a lot of them. Although there are also some unpleasant surprises. A person, whom I considered my friend, who would send me pretty images with kitties, children, flowers and wishes of good day or good night – suddenly disappeared. I did not have to worry about her. She just got scared in her safe and peaceful Italy, that I would suddenly ask her to give me shelter and, as they say, she decided to 'lay at the bottom' [to disappear, not to be visible]. Friendly relationships are not about sending kittens to your messenger.

War takes away your friends. It is best to lose them in this way rather than in another way, irreversibly.

When I was asked under which circumstances, and under which conditions I would leave Ukraine, I would say: 'Only when the irreversible happens and ruZZian world would come here.' I would not accept living with them. And so I am on the crowded bus going towards the border. The irreversible did not happen, and I am going. Why? Our one-and-a-half-year-old child is the reason. Two weeks of lying down on the floor turned a cheerful smiling child into a nervous always crying child suffering hysteria episodes. We took our child, our cat, two pieces of luggage and went into the unknown.

(To be continued)

Halyna [...].