Birthday blackout

on turning 33, and on freezing in Kyiv

I live in Kyiv, and today is my birthday.

Today, russia struck the Ukrainian civilian power grid yet again with ballistic missiles and drones, targeting mainly Kyiv and many other regions. The left bank of Kyiv and my beloved Rusanivka neighborhood were hit the hardest, left with no running water, and nearly 6,000 apartment buildings are left without heating. Think about it: we’re talking about Kyiv-style apartment complexes, each at least 9 stories tall if not more. About 85% of Kyiv is out of electricity, all during subzero temperatures dropping to -15 Celsius. We’re nearing total blackout. I sheltered all night, and explosions welcomed my 33rd birthday.

As a real Ukrainian-Millennial-lost-generation-queer, I am not even entering a midlife crisis because my entire life has been a crisis.

Born just as the Soviet Union died and Ukraine finally clawed towards independence, I have always been living in systems at the cusp of change.

For Ukraine, it’s been change towards proper self-worth and identification despite economic challenges, corruption, and the ever-present maliciousness of russia. Since those tumultous 1990s, I myself was working and studying towards a life of my own, not yet fully able to articulate what was wrong about my dysfunctional family system, but aware that I wanted to get away. Get away I did, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Then, during my studies in the U.S., it turned out that I was there for the gradual erosion of globalism, for the transition from American soft power to actual imperialism. At home, there was the Revolution of Dignity, then the russian annexation of Crimea, the beginning of war. In my late twenties and now early thirties, I’ve gone through the COVID pandemic, the collapse of USAID, and keep getting through the full-scale russian war against Ukraine.

And by the way, I’m queer, which means I’ve had to keep explaining/proving my existence in at least three different political eras/contexts, each with its own special flavor of “now is not a good time to talk about it.”

Minneapolis and St. Paul, the cities where I spent my college years, are under attack by ICE and MAGA.

Kyiv is under russian attack.

Oh, dear fellow Millennials, our efforts to build a life have been much like swimming against the current.

No wonder I am weirdly resilient and completely unhinged in equal measure.

What’s the birthday wisdom here? Perhaps it’s this: if you’re waiting for things to calm down before you actually live, you’re going to be waiting forever. Stability isn’t coming. Nothing is promised. Nothing is guaranteed. The “right time” is a myth. So, let’s live while we’ve got a life, shall we?

This weekend, electricity was restored for a couple of hours in Kyiv, and I had friends over for some food, drinks, and music. We put on CDs using an old Sony audio system and played hit songs from the 1980s and 1990s. “When the workin’ day is done, oh girls, they wanna have fun…” Well, girls also want to have funds, and fundamental human rights, and peace, and opportunities to keep learning and growing, and for russia to freeze in hell.

The trick is to hold everything, to make room for all - the dreams and aspirations for the future, and the uncertainties of the present war, and an evening of messy imperfect joy in a freezing city.

This trick is backed by Ukraine’s Defense Forces holding their ground, by a gas stove, by EcoFlow portable batteries, by businesses and coffeeshops that run on petrol generators, by an emergency backpack stocked with a warm sleeping bag, by tired humans who’d rather not be this resilient, by friends who listen to my incessant dramatic whining - and backed by you, dear Substack community.

If you’ve gotten this far with me in my journey, and you’re thinking ‘I should do something nice for this person on her birthday’, do support this wartime journal of mine on Patreon.

I’ll end today’s ramblings with one of my favorite TV quotes, an exchange from the Millennial-totem-animal show Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridge:

‘-33 isn’t exactly…

-And what had Jesus done by 33?

-Died.

-Exactly. So get out there and flirt.’

Well, it’s NOT warm enough in Kyiv to get out there at all. For now, I’ll just flirt with the possibility of a happy/victorious/abundant ending to this Millennial quest… a happy ending which is not guaranteed… but possible.

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