It's been a year. I'm not a pacifist

Notes after February 24th

It’s 5 AM, and I’m in bed. Waking up to the sound of my phone beeping with a message from my twin sister: “We’ve got explosions. Don’t come.”

"Fuuuuck," I respond.

Last winter, when everyone, from Joe Biden to my Italian father-in-law was claiming that russia would invade Ukraine, I planned a visit home. I bought a ticket for February 27th from Rome. I wasn’t worried about the war breaking out. I was wrong.

As the first bombs struck Ukrainian land, I was peacefully sleeping in my bed. From that moment on, my peaceful nights were gone.

On the first day of the war, I got messages and phone calls from everyone I knew here in Italy. They all asked about my family. I didn’t know how to respond. “They’re alive,” I’d say. “For now.”

In the first few weeks, I could only obsessively read the news and check my sister’s location on my iPhone. I couldn't concentrate on anything longer than 10 minutes. The first thing on my mind when I woke up? "Hope my family is still alive." I smoked a lot.

When I returned to my coworking space, people came up to me almost crying, asking what they could do to help. I suggested they share what was going on in Ukraine so that no one could say, “It’s not all that…