It's pretty easy for me to get used to my daily routine, to hear my dog's noise next to me when I wake up, to go to a cafe near my house where the barista remembers the kind of coffee I like;
Beautiful people on the streets of the old city with their weird dogs, art shows, flea markets, favorite bars, friends and their ambitions.
Ukraine is 30. Currently active adults have been born in an independent state.
We easily distinguish between coffee and cappuccino, between VAT and income tax, between future progress and past corruption. We are not nostalgic for Soviet times, and we do not feel similar to our neighboring nations.
The first time we had to lose our innocence was in 2014. Before that we learned about the horrors of war from our grandparents and only war movies.
It felt like a Marvel comic or a James Bond movie and its super-enemies.
We never knew that safety and freedom were privileges, not a default situation.
We are now members of the war generation.
War films will be made about us.
So fresh and beautiful on the outside, and deeply damaged on the inside.
For us as a people, it was the end of our childhood.
However, life went on.
We lived and even prospered.
Our democracy has grown stronger, and our income has grown.
The EU has opened its borders, and we have longed for new adventures.
Our courage and optimism provided a certain advantage.
We defeated our strong enemy in the first round, with huge losses.
But now at the border of my country, 120 km from the table where I am writing this text, exactly 100,000 Russian soldiers are on full operational alert. Willing to kill us all. I'm afraid that everything I love is at real risk of corruption and destruction. An old man wants to kill people I love, in a city that is my home because of his imperial aspirations.He has never met me and he will never know me.I may be a victim of his madness, and he will not even know my name.
For now we have the freedom to love whoever we want, to demand respect and to stand up for our rights.
We have the freedom to voice controversial opinions, even if it is a protest of stupid vaccine opponents in the heat of an epidemic.
We can replace a president in any term, and we do that regularly.
It is easy to get used to freedom.
My friends from Russia are amazed every time I say that none of my friends have been imprisoned for their political views.
Belarusian refugees tremble in fear as a police car passes us.
But we are not afraid.
It's so annoying that my life is passing and I'm getting older, while the people of the past stand in the way of beautiful people of the future.
They constantly interfere and threaten our safety, and do so with distorted pleasure.
I want my thoughts to be busy every day with problems like the one who did not ask me to go out with him, or does not have my size in jeans at the store.
I do not want to deal with this reality where the main topics of small talk in your favorite bar are how to use a gun, apply a bandage on a wound or how to keep your elderly parents safe.
I do not want to know how to pack an emergency backpack.
I want my life back.
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