by Katerina Tarasenko
I call myself “an optimist to the core.” I always believe in the best, no matter what reality life brings me. On the first day, my mother called me at 6.30 in the morning and said:
– Daughter, go home, urgently!
And the daughter, of course, did not even consider such an outcome of events.
I remember that in the first seconds such a statement by my mother even seemed ridiculous to me. “Well, how do you want to protect me, woman? There is not even a bomb shelter in our house,” flashed through my head, but, of course, I didn’t voice it. Then the question arose—how to be? In addition to my, as I said, inveterate optimism, I am also a terrible coward. Well, that is, not quite the way people used to interpret it, a little unconventional. There are people who are afraid of heights, spiders, death, blood—some logical external factors that pose a threat. And I’m afraid of suspense.
Everything that I have already seen in my life cannot excite my blood again. Suspense can. And if there is still uncertainty, multiplied by panic and the absence of a backup plan, it turns out to be a vigorous mixture. Well, or a panic attack, as it is customary to call such attacks by psychologists. In short, this is exactly what I felt in the early days. I went around and calmed everyone in my area, like a real flint. I remember that I was so sure of my words, as if it wasn’t Putin who started this war, but I myself, and I’m about to end it.
During the day—to calm everyone, at night—to cry out everything that cannot be cried out during the day. This is how my first week went. I don’t know how miraculously I managed to spend the first night at work. Because in the morning at home, a surprise awaited me in the form of broken windows in the apartment. It was as if an enemy helicopter flew over the coward inside me and miraculously did not notice.
It was call number 1. I believed until the last that the capital would not be touched. It did not fit in my head, absolutely. I don’t even want to comment on the events in the suburbs, all I remember I was reading the news, and I was scared. You sit silently and cowardly, like a homeless cat. Attacks on Shulyavka, on Poznyaky. This was the second call. I was TOO near. The third was my mother. A week later, she wrote:
“You have to leave. If you don’t want to go home, leave the country.”
All relatives gathered in one house worried without exception about me. Mom knew that I would not come home, because I could not stand there for even three days and would surrender myself to the soldiers (not a funny joke, but there is truth in every part of the joke, as you know).
On March 2, I decide to leave the country. The caveat is to leave the country FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YOUR LIFE. Yes, I’m 21, and I’ve never been abroad before. I have never been at the airport, I have no idea why they check so much at customs, what duty-free is in general, and whether I will die on the plane from another panic attack. I don’t know ANYTHING. And I decide to leave. I remember that “preparatory” night like it was yesterday. I googled everything about flights inside and out, calculated every kilometre and hour of my route, stuffed money and documents into the most traditional and non-traditional places. As a result, I did not fall asleep for a minute.
Train was at 3 pm. At 11 something knocks me out, and I go to bed. Realizing that I can’t physically endure the two-day-long road (at least), I decide to go tomorrow. Nine pm. I woke up from a loud explosion and by inertia I grab the phone in my hands. “The train station was hit; the number of victims is still unknown” At that moment, for the first time in my life, I believed that someone from above was protecting me very much. I cracked up and fell asleep.
Tomorrow I have a long road ahead of me. March 3:2 p.m. My train was going to arrive in the late afternoon, but it was scary to be at home alone, it’s better to go to the station with people. I look at the broken windows, I have an attack again. I take all the sedatives on the road and immediately go out into the fresh air. Finally, I went into the suspense. March 5, Warsaw. For two days I dozed three times, and ate even less. I’m renting a hotel, I’m finally going to sleep normally, as my dad calls.
– Daughter, if you need my help, call me right away. Tell me what you need, I’ll help with anything.
It was his first call in a year. Now we are regularly written off, and before the war, a divorce put an end to our communication. The war brought my dad back to me. For this I want to thank.
Yes, to be honest, I want to say thank you for a lot. First, to my environment and those who supported me verbally and physically in obscurity till the end. To the person who hosted me in Greece and with whom we are now happy and making plans for this life. That military man at the Lviv railway station, who, when the first train to Poland was announced in three hours, received an order to close the passage and not let anyone in. But he let me through, and instead of ten hours, I stayed there only three. The company that hired me in Greece appreciated my situation and helped me settle in a new place.
I really want to thank myself for the fact that, as always, I went towards my fear and overcame it.
And also to the one who guards me from above, and who did not let me hear my windows breaking on the first night. He probably knew that then my psycho would fail, and I would cease to control absolutely everything.
