Until I was 5, I had lived my whole life in Luhansk, Ukraine. Then, in April 2014, Russia invaded Luhansk and another nearby region, Donetsk. Russia declared these eastern Ukrainian areas independent states and renamed them Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic. These name changes are part of how the Russian government tries to erase the Ukrainian identities of people who live there.
After the invasion, my family moved to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and tried to find a better life. My dad listened to political podcasts and interviews, but my parents didn’t talk to me about the political situation much. I knew there was a war, that Russia had claimed our land, and that the two countries hated each other.
It took years for my family to fully adjust to our new lives. School helped: In Kyiv, I went to one school with the same kids from first grade through seventh grade. We didn’t even know how close we’d gotten. In sixth grade, another kid from Luhansk joined our class, and we exchanged sad glances.
Every summer, I’d go to camps for a Japanese martial art called aikido. My favorite camp was outside Kyiv, in a forest by a lake. The last night of camp was prank night. During my last summer in Ukraine, on prank night, my best friend and I put toothpaste on some sleeping kids’ arms and cheeks, then snuck out of the dorm. We laughed and ran to the beach and watched the sunrise.
A few months later, on February 24, 2022, Russia launched an even bigger invasion into Ukrainian territory. It attacked towns and cities all across Ukraine, including Kyiv. Rumors of war had been circling us like snakes. My neighbors often lit fireworks, so when I heard loud bangs at 5 a.m., I went back to sleep. An hour later, my mother woke me up and said, “Wake up, the war started.” Those words were like freezing water over my body.
I heard the sound of bombs from my apartment. Out my window, I saw people rushing with suitcases to their cars.
I had practiced packing my things a few days before, so I went ahead and packed for real. My dad asked me to help him carry our bags to the car, and the sounds outside became terrifyingly loud. Huge swishes, then deafening blasts when bombs flew into buildings. I was shaken to my core.
My dad drove the two of us to the gas station, about seven minutes away, and waited in the line of cars for 20 minutes. My grandmother, mother, and one-year-old sister were at home finishing packing. I texted my classmates, who I was supposed to see two hours later in English class.
As my dad and I sat in a traffic jam, I got a message from one of the tougher guys in class. “I am going to miss all of you and I hope one day we will see each other again,” he wrote. We were friends, but I didn’t think I’d ever see him so vulnerable. It was the first time that many guys in my class admitted they had feelings. We all texted that we were afraid and were going to miss each other. It didn’t feel real.
After my dad and I picked up the rest of our family, we drove southeast along the Dnipro River for about two hours, arriving at a village near Cherkasy where my great-uncle lived. There, we lived for about two weeks, eight people in very close proximity. Because it was a small village, it felt safer. There were not a lot of alerts and sirens.
My friends who had stayed in Kyiv, meanwhile, constantly awoke to sirens and bombs and had to hurry into bomb shelters. They described their daily lives to me on the phone in voices laced with anxiety.
Early one evening at my great-uncle’s place, as the sun began to set, our phones blared a bomb warning. The serene atmosphere crumbled. We quickly got into the car and drove 30 minutes to my great-uncle’s wife’s parents. They had a basement we could shelter in. I grew up Christian, but that evening was the first time I had prayed in years. I didn’t know who might die that night. That’s when my parents decided to leave the country.
On March 6, 2022, my 13th birthday, we stopped at a hotel for a night on our way to the Hungarian border. The five of us dragged our suitcases. My grandma and I shared one room, while my parents and younger sister shared another.
Everybody was on edge and too exhausted to talk, so we got room service, including my favorite chocolate cake, but my euphoria at being 13 lasted about three minutes. Then the grief and sorrow and fear came back.
We stayed in a hotel in Hungary for three days. My dad could not get the right documents to leave the country, so he returned to Kyiv while the rest of us drove to Slovakia. Next to the road were beautiful fields full of flowers, but stress plagued our minds.
In Slovakia, we stayed with a Slovak friend of my dad’s and two other refugee families, also from Kyiv. We were there long enough for the other two refugee kids and me to start school there. I learned Slovak and even made friends. But I worried about my dad.
Three months into our stay, he joined us in Slovakia. New wrinkles had grown around his eyes, but his hug was still as warm and big as ever. The four of us stayed in my dad’s friend’s apartment for another three days. We then got the word that we could all immigrate to the United States.
I was somewhat ecstatic to see America as I knew it from the movies. I imagined a bright city with lights shining on me as I danced. I did not think that this move would be permanent.
In June 2022, we flew to New York. We lived at first with a family friend on Long Island. I started eighth grade in a middle school there. Because Ukrainian kids start studying English in first grade, I did not require ESL classes.
My accent set me apart though. All the kids in the school had known each other since kindergarten. I didn’t fit in and only made three friends. I might have made more friends if I didn’t focus on school so much, but reading a book during lunch gave me more comfort than kids asking me how to cuss in my native language.
I have gone to three schools in the last two years, a stark contrast to the one school in Kyiv that I attended for seven years. Two of them were middle schools, and now I attend a high school in Queens.
I get tired of talking about Ukraine to Americans. Whenever I mention my nationality, a beloved part of my life, I get the same questions — often about the war and if anyone I know died in it. (Thankfully, nobody close to me has been among the dead.)
The new U.S. president claims that he is capable of finishing the war “within weeks” even as Ukraine mourns the three-year anniversary of the Russian invasion. His words remind me of how Putin said he could control Kyiv in three days. He did not. It hurts to see the new U.S. administration turn its back on a democratic Ukraine and embrace its aggressor, Russia.
I constantly look for media coverage about Ukraine. My Spotify playlist of Ukrainian songs is up to 13 hours and 19 minutes. I text my loved ones there, and I think about them, especially late at night. I hate that my only access to them is through a screen. I yearn to be back in the Kyiv school I attended for seven years, singing makeshift karaoke as our teacher walks in and tells us to quiet down. I yearn to be back at my old dojo doing aikido with my friends.
But I don’t like feeling sad or like a victim. I have friends here, and I found people to do aikido with. My school offers college credit during junior and senior years. I should be halfway through my college credits by the time I graduate high school. This intense academic load helps to distract me from my sorrow, but the sorrow sometimes spills over.
Not long ago, I walked into my guidance counselor’s office, feeling overwhelmed. When I closed the door of his office, I suddenly collapsed on the chair and started sobbing. I was so tired of everything in my life.
My guidance counselor said supportive things and let me cry for five minutes. Then he started using calming techniques. “What is your happy place?” he asked. “Whenever I am stressed I like to think about my happy place. Walking on the beach, or just being out in nature. What’s yours?”
I took a few deep breaths and realized that my happy place was the aikido summer camp where my best friend and I watched that forbidden sunrise. The tears fell anew, and as they did, I tried to make sense of a happy place I might never return to. I tried thinking instead of people as my happy place, but the people I imagined comforting me were also from Ukraine, like my friend from camp. And anyone still there remains in danger from the ongoing war.
I started to see a therapist four years ago back in Ukraine, and I still “see” her on Skype once a week. She can get me to talk about my feelings, and we have tough conversations about the fact that I can’t control everything about my life.
My parents do not expect to return to Ukraine. All my high school classes seem to be about wars. I’ve been crying a lot. The news about the war looks bad, and it seems likely I won’t be able to go back in the next few years. I’m trying to be realistic and still have faith that, one day, my homeland will be safe.
A version of this piece was originally published by Youth Communication.
Arina Limarieva is a proud Ukrainian who writes poetry, takes photographs, and practices aikido and its philosophy.