Editor’s note:
Mass attacks struck Kyiv the day before Zelenskyy and Trump are expected to meet in Washington, D.C.
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The holidays are many things to many people, but it is almost universally a time for reflection.
I joked last year around this time that I was feeling exhausted down to my very bone marrow. If that was the case then, well, my mitochondria are flickering on and off now, whining and grinding, as if to ask: ‘Is this all *strictly necessary*?’
When – as happened over the last day – the night was filled with loud explosions, the water cut off for the first time ever, and you awake in a cold room without power, there is even a temptation to feel sorry for one’s self.
But as they say in Ukraine, it’s a sin to complain.
And nowhere is there less room for self-pity than when you are standing next to a soldier who has spent years facing down death, destruction and grief with no schedule for relief.
