What was I doing when the war started?

I had a day off work. Used to night shifts at the airport, I woke up around 4 a.m. My girlfriend (now ex) woke up too.

The weather was good. We planned to go to the water park when it opened.

Around 5:30, notifications started coming in: hostages, terrorist cars roaming the country. Not long after that, the bombings started.

Neither of us had served in the army. Both of us had been exempt for mental health reasons.

We were two 21-year-old girls living alone in a foreign country. Neither of us had experienced anything like this before.

Thankfully, my aunt was very kind to invite us both to her house, since her area was considered safer.

I still had to work one shift. I remember checking in an old Russian man into business class - only I spoke Russian. He was furious about his seat change. He kept snapping at me until I had a panic attack right there at the desk. They barely let me leave, but I was really in tears and could not think straight. The airport was really busy.

The same day, somehow, we got on one of the last flights still leaving, and we went to Dubai - my cousin lived there at the time, but she relocated with her family a couple weeks later.

Then I went to my parents’ country.

They held me at the airport because both my ID and passport had expired.

I knew the regulations, and I was allowed to enter the country with only a foreign passport.

They held me there for four hours while my parents drove eight hours from another city.

The inspector was asking me,

“How stupid can you be to travel without having valid documents”

Like I had time to renew them.

The same behaviors I always relied on - compliance, agreeability - worked again.

They let me go.