Episode 3, Personal Checkpoint
“I am tired. I am tired, tired, tired. My body is tired, my brain is tired and so is my heart”. Those were the words I wrote into my journal after being in Poland for only five days. Within five days, I had pulled off three night shifts in the constantly dark and musky mother and baby room where you could always hear at least one crying infant and tons of coughing. I had set up countless cots in the large room with the giant “13” tagged onto its outside wall and seen suffering and grief many of you are being reported about on the news. It’s real. During the night shifts, Ilga and I would take a sunrise break in the morning and step out onto the parking lot to stretch and breathe. Watching people leave on the 5AM bus to Germany became one of my routine things to silently do. Every morning around this time, dozens of refugees would roll their suitcases and carry their sleeping toddlers wrapped in a blanket across the parking lot, the increasing number of injured young men would roll their wheelchairs or limp with their crutches. All of them were up to enter the bus into their new, unknown lives. After completing work at the center, I would walk out into the crisp morning air. I purposefully always parked the bike given to me by my host family 5 minutes away from the center so that I would have those silent moments of walking from the center to my bike. They helped me regroup and refocus myself. Leave what I encountered in the center that night behind, think and be thankful. I really needed and cherished those walks and bike rides home. On my early morning bike ride I would usually listen to the radio news. It gave me glimpses into the rest of the world but it also was particularly odd to listen to reports about what I myself was an active part of aiding during these days. I was a 20 minute car drive away from the war. More notes in my journal include sentences like this: “I am so thankful. For my two powerful passports and the stable sovereignty and democracy my countries are currently running on. For my warm and rich home and freedom to live my life as planned and wished for”. On one of the first mornings, I was unable to fall asleep after a night at the center. My thoughts were spinning. This experience has shown me that no matter how dark times and the world can get, things will always somehow be ok. Things will work out. They will not be fair at all times or even at all and are often surely far from perfect, but for those who survive, life goes on fueled by strength and community. We are currently managing a gruesome and extremely upsetting war for sure and there is no excuse or apology in the world good enough to justify it. But the amount of people who have shown up to help, gives me such hope and this little, comforting idea that somehow things will be alright. People will show up for one another. That's what we do.
Thank you for listening to Inside the Other Side. I am always happy to connect with you listeners via email or on social media @insidetheotherside.
Until next week!
Slava Ukraini!
