Recovery

I’ve heard you can’t recover from traumatic incidents until you are safe. The car accident survivor can’t process the event while he is bleeding on the roadway with broken bones and a concussion. The woman in a domestic violence situation can’t heal until she leaves her abuser. Victims of war can’t thrive while bombs are still falling around them.

Our family evacuated from Ukraine to Hungary on the second day of the full-scale war. We’ve been living in Budapest since March 2022. It’s safe. There are no air-raid sirens. No explosions. No drones. No threat of aerial attack. We’ve been here for over three years. In safety. We’ve rebuilt our lives. We’ve helped others do the same. Our children have bright prospects.

But the wounds of war still feel immediate. You’d think after so long, they would be healed. There would be scars, but we wouldn’t still be bleeding. Why does everything still feel so raw? If we are safe, why aren’t we recovering faster?

But what does safety look like when you’re a refugee, and the war that chased you from home still rages on? Can you enjoy your carefree life when people you love face death daily? Can you blithely move on when places you know are being destroyed? Can you feel safe when every foray online threatens to reveal something devastating?

The truth is, we will never feel safe until we can stop checking the news each morning to see who was hit overnight. Until proof-of-life texting is not a routine activity. Until all our friends defending Ukraine return from the front lines. Until this war is over, none of us will be able to recover.

Part of me wants to feel normal again, but another part is horrified by the thought.

My beloved Podil was hit last week. It is one of my favorite places in the world. The years I lived in this historic district of Kyiv were the happiest of my life. I still know people living there. In proof-of-life texts, some of them described the terror of the attack.

The apartment building where dear friends used to live was damaged, as was a business center I used to walk past all the time. People in multiple regions across the city were injured or killed. I’ve been in a funk for days. Part of me wants to feel normal again, but another part is horrified by the thought of normalcy when the country I called home for two decades is trapped in a deadly abnormal.

As I’ve struggled through my emotions, I’ve felt ashamed for taking this so much to heart. But I’d feel guilty if I were unaffected. My thoughts say I should be well on the road to recovery, since we’ve been living in safety for over three years. But my emotions reveal truth. As long as Russian bullets and missiles are destroying people and places I love, my heart is not safe. And if my heart is not safe, neither am I. Recovery will have to wait.