Immediately after the explosions ceased, what followed was a succession of attempts—some faint and vaporous, like someone handling the delicacy of a veil, others robust and efficient, but still incomplete.
I’m an aromatherapist specialized in family well-being. You’d think that, in a healer’s home… And it’s not that there weren’t many conscious inhalations. But precisely because I am—modesty aside—very good at what I do, I knew, even that same night, that this day had the potential to become a deep trauma in our story. Everything would depend on what came next. Because trauma isn’t what happens, it’s what remains— the marks, the interpretations.
In the following days, a strange cycle settled in: refreshing news sites compulsively, training an AI to help me filter what was truly relevant, and holding space for my children. Not always in that order. Not always with clear priority.
At some point, late at night, when everything seemed too quiet—offering a stark contrast to what had happened just hours before—I noticed how dark everything was. My street, the city, the sky. The waning moon, at its peak, had disappeared, and everything seemed to sink into the dark.
I’ve always been fascinated by lunar movements. The waning moon, the one that draws the sap back to the roots, invites us to turn inward, to dig deep inside, searching for answers to questions that, in the light of day, don’t even dare to leave the unconscious.
The next morning, I was operating like a machine.
I wrote the previous text (click here to read it) like someone expelling the last remnants of that dark night.
I wrote in a frenzy.
I edited and re-edited.
I carved the text like someone mining for crystal, and in the rawness of the stone that bled from the earth, I saw the shape of a statue.
I sculpted with words the brief moments of terror still vibrating in me.
But little by little, a quiet shame began to settle.
Shame for still trembling.
Shame for being afraid.
I started repeating, like a mantra: “it was nothing.” Every time a sign of emotion emerged, I would smother it with that mantra.
It was just a choreographed attack, like a Sunday afternoon movie.
There was no real danger.
No bomb fell.
No one died.
It was nothing, right?
I’m not even sure who I was asking—probably trying to find out if that waning moon had left seeds hidden somewhere in the back of my mind. Some answer. Some meaning. Because, after all, those missiles weren’t meant for us. We had prepared for this. We’d talked it through extensively, outlining limits, creating action plans for each scenario. I wasn’t, in the literal sense of the word, caught off guard.
My body wasn’t reacting to danger narrowly avoided,
but to the full weight of what could have been.
My flesh kept telling the story, over and over again, even as the news confirmed the danger had passed.
Maybe because my story, shaped by danger from a very young age—never forgot.
My body stayed on alert.
Ready.
And it gave me no rest.
Nights became a blur, a state of endless vigilance.
Or maybe my reaction was a mere reflection, it was real after all.
There was light.
There was noise.
There was an explosion in the sky.
Alongside the response to my text came, hand in hand like sisters, the comparisons:
“This is nothing compared to [insert other place].”
“Nothing even happened, imagine if it were real.”
I received heartfelt messages, people deeply moved. But I also read fiery speeches, as if my pain were a kind of audacity. As if being raw were somehow disrespectful.
I already knew this could happen.
Sensitive as I am, I expected it.
As if I needed permission to fall apart.
As if my pain had to cross some geopolitical threshold to be valid.
It took every ounce of my integrity not to fall into that trap.
Not to allow my story, my experience, my memory, to be rinsed away by the idea that pain only counts if there’s blood. That there’s some sort of hierarchy.
No hierarchies.
Just respect.
Because the truth is, my body went through a war—even if symbolic.
And it seems my heart, truly, learned a new beat.
My fear was valid.
My love was valid.
So was my vulnerability.
And now, little by little, I’m finding my way back.
Not to normal—because that no longer exists—
but to the attempt of being whole again.
To trust the ground beneath me.
To trust time.
To trust myself.
The week that followed was the longest of the year.
