Just Because You Keep Coming Back
These words live only because you choose to stay
I DON’T KNOW IF YOU NOTICED, MY FRIENDS, but I’ve been writing here every day for some time already.
It’s not because I have to, but because I can’t stop.
I live inside these words.
A good while ago, this journal stopped being an expression of my life. It became my life itself.
Because no one in this country knows how long life will remain a privilege to be lived in the following day.
And there’s so much to write. So much to tell in case the worst happens.
It is exhausting to live when the next minute can be the last, but as long as there’s life, there will be two things:
Hope and something to write.
And so we writers need to hurry up.
I wake up trying obsessively to hold pieces of dreams that might turn into something you’ll carry.
I move through the day in streets and roads of this country but my mind is completely on the sentences that haven't been born yet.
I take endless notes on my phone, scraps of paper, even my own hand.
And then, around 6 or 7 PM Ukrainian time, I finally sit down with a keyboard. And don’t leave until these words feel like they could sit next to you at your table.
Until they start to breathe in some way.
Until they’re ready to reach across the world and rest on your shoulder, or your heart if I get lucky.
It’s often 3 in the morning before I stand up. Some nights, I don’t stand at all, and this time of the year when we have daylight before 5 AM, I get the surprise of a second bright screen looking at me… but it’s just a window and the morning rising.
But that’s the most special part of my day and night because when I’m writing here, I forget there’s a war outside.
Or maybe I don’t forget the war, but I certainly dissolve into something bigger than fear.
It’s like I get transported to another world when I am writing.
If I don’t forget the war, at least the war forgets me for a moment.
You might think these words come from a man who can’t sleep, but there’s something you must know about them:
These words live because you keep coming back.
Because you decide, every day, to stay close and read them.
There are sirens at night. Hundreds of drones flying over our cities. The wife I haven’t seen in three years. A kid I don’t get to watch grow.
But when I write, I’m not thinking about that. Even if I’m writing about that
In those hours, I am entirely with you, my readers.
I’m thinking about how this country touches your country, your family, your dinner table seven or eight hours behind the clock I see on my wall.
I’m thinking that I must stay resilient because this work may be important to show that Ukraine is not just another country on a map like hundreds.
Not another infographic on the evening news.
This is a place full of people who dream, who scream, who resist.
People who love, who survive.
When you wonder if it matters to keep caring, if paying attention changes anything at all, please remember that it does.
This is not just about a country full of cities you can’t pronounce. This is about you.
About the person you become when you decide to keep paying attention.
Last night, I shared a piece where I tried to find a grain of humanity in Donald Trump. I wanted to believe there was something human in that man.
The whole thing was strange, I felt like I didn’t express myself well, but I hit the publish button anyway.
It was very late, but it would be unfair to blame the poor clock. And in the first minutes, you gently reminded me I crossed a line I didn’t need to cross.
And I heard you.
I didn’t need to cross it because you already understood what he is. You reminded me that he is not simply flawed, he is proud to be evil, a presence capable of creating harm and devouring what is tender.
You reminded me that his character can never be softened by anything that resembles pity.
You shared stories about your own anger rising in you, scaring you.
I tried to find a crack in him, a small human corner. You knew better. You held the line I almost dropped.
You are not just readers, but guardians of this fragile story.
You guard the last light. You decide what survives.
And you’re still here.
You keep reading, even when it hurts. Even when it feels strange.
You keep carrying these stories when they get heavy.
That means Ukraine is still breathing inside you.
I don’t know how many more nights I can wait for the right words. Sometimes it seems that the world forgets us a little more each day.
But if you stay, this journal lives.
If you stay, this country lives.
And if it lives in you, no one can’t destroy it.
🇺🇦
(Saturday, 2:51 AM in Ukraine)
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Always, we will guard the light with you.
Never stop writing and reporting from your beloved country. Slava Ukraine!