Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate I don't know why the winter holidays in war plunge me into such a melancholy. ​Maybe it's the eternal darkness of days that last barely a few hours, paired with electricity shortages. It's strange what constant darkness does to us. ​Maybe it's the anxiety of surviving another cold season under the attack of monsters who try to freeze us if they can't outright kill us. ​Maybe it's the sense of isolation. Of detachment from the rest of you. As the world celebrates and enjoys, we are here, hanging by a thread for years, alive but not living. We are like a lit candle exposed to the wind-the flame is yet alive, but for how long? ​Maybe it's because another year has passed of not achieving, but of enduring, burying, grieving, missing. ​Maybe it's the howling darkness ahead. ​Maybe it's fear. ​People say they want this and that for Christmas. All I want is to survive it.