Nothing is Fair in Love and War.

Today, I learned that there is no room for love in times of war. No room to hold a partner or child, parent or sibling. No room to greet a friend, laugh, or sing. No room to work, no room to live, no room to exist.

You feel perpetually suspended in time, reliving the same monotonous reality over and over, hoping that tomorrow brings a break or change, only to realize that it doesn’t.

I learned that nothing’s fair in love and war. I learned that the more deeply you live in denial, the harder it hits when the mask is removed, and all you’re left with are the remnants of avoidant moments and the loss of the serenity they brought.

I drove to learn that people suffer cruelty in varying degrees. There are those who find their realities shattered into pieces, no longer recognizable; those who see the cracks and attempt to mend and fix them; and those who have the capacity to bypass the break altogether.

Today, an echo of various days that passed, had me experiencing pockets of society that contrast to extremes unimaginable. In the south of Lebanon, where my family and friends are and were, I see panic, fear, confusion, and pain. But with every kilometer I drove, the picture changed drastically. There were moments of hope, moments of love, and moments of joy.

I learned that the concept of what’s fair and what’s not cannot exist in times of war. Humanity has always been driven to conflict, and our capacity to do the unspeakable is as immense as our desire to breathe.

I saw children who did not understand, and as I write this very statement, I can hear the faint sound of a distant fighter jet above — sure to cause panic or death to someone else, somewhere else.

I saw the world through the lens of the empathetic and the apathetic, and the more I saw around me, the less I saw myself.

Nothing’s fair in love and war.