I Learned to Be Silent About Pain

I learned to live through the deepest pain alone.

Not to speak, not to explain — just to hold it inside.

But today I feel I have to say it.

At least once — out loud.

And not just to myself.

I want to talk about it with my daughter.

I don’t know if those who have never seen war can understand me.

Those I met only after — when it had already become our reality,

when we started living in new homes, with new neighbors,

in new languages that haven’t yet become our own.

It’s hard even to say it aloud,

because now almost no one speaks about how truly hard it is.

We all seem to have silently agreed not to talk about it.

Everyone carries their own story.

Everyone knows how hard it is to live through a war.

Everyone knows how hard it is to start over.

How hard it is to get used to a country you didn’t choose.

A life you never planned.

It would have been easier if it were a choice of the heart:

to move, to learn a new language, to look for opportunities.

But we didn’t leave — we escaped.

We left half of our lives there,

where now only memories live.

My daughter has grown up.

When the war began, she was still small.

Now she’s older, calmer, wiser than she should be for her age.

And I can’t show her the childhood she was meant to have.

I can’t show her the park where we used to walk,

my grandmother’s summer house,

where we swam in the pool,

picked raspberries,

and laughed even when the only money we had was for a taxi ride home.

That was our happiness —

simple, family happiness.

Maybe I stayed silent for so long because I didn’t want my daughter to see me weak.

I wanted her to see strength.

To know that we’re not alone.

We have my husband, her father.

We are together.

And a better life is waiting for us.

You can’t pity yourself — I tell myself this often.

Because pity doesn’t heal — it drains you.

It stops you in the middle of your path,

pulls you out of life.

And then you stop creating,

you stop moving.

And I can’t allow that.

Because to live means to see the future.

And when I think about the future,

I close my eyes

and imagine peace.

That Ukraine has won.

That all roads are open again.

I want to open those roads with the power of thought.

To end this endless chapter.

To hug my grandmother.

To come for a visit.

To return to my apartment — even if just for a few days.

To see the dust on the handles

I once touched for the last time.

To walk into my garden,

the one that inspired me,

the one that was my space of strength.

I want to walk through my city —

the one I used to love and probably still do.

Because I love not its streets,

but its earth.

Its nature.

The air I grew up breathing.

I don’t love what’s being done to that place.

I don’t love the indifference.

The theft.

The stagnation —

as if time stopped in the nineties.

But I believe.

I believe that Poltava region is a land of talent —

of people born in beauty,

of those who can truly feel with their hearts.

And I believe Ukraine will bloom again.

That we’ll come not with tears,

but with joy — to visit our loved ones.

That my daughter will see her grandmother,

see our garden, our places,

and know:

this is our country,

but our home is here now —

in Germany.

And all of this is still about love.

About a new life,

where we carry our past gently

and build our future with hope.