I will never forget how strange it felt when I walked down the wide, empty streets of Berlin at the start of the month. It felt like being in a dream, where elements of it felt so familiar while also foreign, peaceful and threatening at the same time. This dream went on for a while until I started worrying whether I will wake up at all and at some point I was forced to accept that I will need to achieve a certain degree of acceptance to be able to keep my sanity.
After passing a few stages which, to me, felt very similar to the Kübler-Ross model, I have recently come to terms with the fact that the current situation we are dealing with might just be the new normal. This new acceptance came not only from a lot of introspection, but also from seeing how other people process, react, and deal with the new apocalyptic world we live in. Number two features four of our oldest and dearest friends, whose works gave me the affirmation I needed; that it is okay to feel claustrophobic, that it is okay to feel lost, it is okay to yearn for times gone by, but only if you do not forget that life also goes on regardless.
Jan Thedja
