I was hesitating whether I should write my monthly report again or not. This time it was for a completely different reason. February turned up to be one of the lowest point in my life emotionally.
In the beginning of the month I contracted Covid from my daughter who got it in the kindergarten. Almost by chance I decided to make a rapid test because I didn’t sleep well during the night. And the test came out positive. In 10 minutes all my emergency things were packed and I left to my sister’s home who at the time was abroad. Midway I got a call that my daughter was also positive, and so we left to isolate together.
To a degree this was fun because we spent some quality time together, walked outside, cooked, watched movies and cartoons, and slept in the same bed. But at the same time I was also trying to work. This failed miserably. Partly because it’s really hard to work and keep your child happy, but also partly because my brain plain refused to think. I spent a week working on a functionality that I have implemented later within half a day. These unfulfilled expectations caused me a fair bit of stress which in hindsight could have been avoided have I taken sick week.
After getting back home things started to improve only to get way worse: a war in Ukraine happened. Russia invaded its neighbouring country calling this a special operation and changing pretext almost daily. First it was genocide caused in separatist regions of Donbass and Luhanks, then it became nazi policy and the infringement of rights of Russia-speaking people (which of course got eventually solved by completely destroying pro-Russian city of Kharkiv). There were more bizarre versions of Ukraine posessing or building nuclear weapons followed by chemical weapons. At the time of writing this war caused more than 2M people to flee the country.
To say that I got devastated is an understatement. There’s a myriad of emotions in me now: anger, anxiety, saddness, uneasiness, helplesness. In the past 15 years I have cried 3 times, 2 have been in the past month.
Moving on I still cannot figure out what to do and how to help other than financially. It makes me angry that I had such a strong reaction to a conflict here in Europe but was completely calm to the situation in Syria where so many children and families got hurt. It makes me angry that I can go to the shop and buy a bottle of beer while some are hiding in the basement trying to survive. Yet I need to take care of my family, go to work, and live a semi-normal life.
Fin.