Meaning of 'okay' when your country's at war

and are you really ever ?

me, sheltering from Russian missile attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, in our apartment hallway.

This Saturday my first text from my dad was that he’s okay. Right after ‘good morning’. It’s was not to say hi: this text means there was a massive Russian drone and missile attack on our city, and he’s alive.

He’s okay.

My sister sends me messages like that too.

Whenever I see them, I feel…

I feel.

When war came I realised just how many things I feel now don’t have a name for - at least I don’t know them yet.

So, i’ll describe it as a musical piece:

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it starts with sparks of joy quickly followed by a chilling dread creeping in from the gut from the walls crawling sound of strings there to prepare you for what’s to come the dry the nauseating horror but not the one you think this is horror of the third year of full out war eating up time and space it is still horror but it’s horror on the rocks it’s horror that is just there standing in the room a bit to your right this horror is your enemy this horror is your friend

this horror is reminding you war is still here

then it nods. and you nod.

and it’s gone.

puff.

Sometimes my friends send me texts asking same very question,

or with a twist:

‘how are you?’

‘are you okay?’

what does it even mean to be okay ?

I am not okay

none of us are

you can not be okay when your only weather forecast your life depends on is about how many drones and missiles are flying in direction of your city

your life is not normal anymore

not that we really know what normal life is

but usually we mean the one without war

and well, that’s just not you anymore.

so, are you okay ?

here is the thing: when war comes to your life, the peaceful setting vocabulary goes out of window - at least major chunk of it

and war vocabulary comes in

now you know what air raid siren alerts are

now you know what MIG and TU bombers are and what kind of missiles they carry

now you know where to hide depending on which one it is

so, are you okay?

according to war vocabulary,

you are

y o u ’ r e s t i l l h e r e

and now you can do something about everything else.

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