It’s 5:40 p.m. We are sitting in the living room watching BBC World News. Suddenly we hear a familiar name—‘Nagorno-Karabakh.’ We inch closer to the TV to make sure we hear every word. We stop everything we are doing. We increase the volume. The segment begins. Seconds later, my mother bursts into tears. I can hardly look at her. Immediately I react and say to her ‘don’t cry right now.’ I didn’t even think when I said it. It was subconscious and instinctual. I don’t think I even meant it. I look away. I record on my phone the soldiers praying in their military uniforms. I am watching through the screen of my phone.
As I am watching, a thought crosses my mind: ‘Why aren’t you crying, Tina? Why haven’t you cried more?’ I stop to think. Am I not sad? Am I not upset that an entire generation of my people is being wiped off the planet? Do I know that kids will have to grow up without their fathers? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Then I wonder, what is this numb feeling? Is it 2020? Is it strength? Is it apathy? I cannot answer any of these questions.
This is the emotional rollercoaster every Armenian in the world is currently experiencing. We break into tears after hearing just a single note of Komitas’ Der Voghormia. The next minute we are scrolling through our phones with our other hand over our mouths, in complete and utter disbelief. I realized that in that moment, my mind simply could not process what I was watching. It could not reconcile the reality and the emotion. I feel as if my reality and my emotions are in a constant battle – not dissimilar to our heroes on the frontline. It’s like a game of tug of war. Remember when we used to play tug of war at Panagoum? We would pull until we got red in the face and one team won to secure bragging rights for the rest of the weekend. That’s what every day feels like for us now, but it’s not a fond memory like our annual camping trips.
I’m not exactly sure what I intend to do with this writing – this stream of consciousness. It’s a way, I guess, for me to feel normal or at least try and verbalize what is happening inside. It’s like I am trying to compute the inner equations of my soul.
I know I am sad. I know I am upset. But I am also infuriated. I’m frustrated. I’m mourning. I’m grieving. I’m praying. Again, I can only describe it as a sliding scale of emotions, constantly swinging from one end to the next, all while trying to grasp the reality that we are in. This is the rollercoaster that comes with being Armenian. We know that the potential of war or the potential of another conflict, or even worse genocide, is always present in our people. We know it’s always there, even though it’s buried somewhere very deep inside. We all know that there is always the chance that the rollercoaster is going to start back up again—the rollercoaster that is being Armenian. But that never stops us from riding that rollercoaster—for being proud to be Armenian, for honoring our ancestors who we are forever indebted to and for keeping our culture, our music, our language, our religion, our lands for the next generation to come.
Tina Sajonian
Latest posts by Tina Sajonian (see all)
- Uncomfortably Numb - November 4, 2020
Beautifully expressed. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I have also been feeling this way ever since the war has started and I know that every Armenian around the world is also feeling this way too
Thank you for articulating your experience so beautifully. This resonates with me and so many in the Armenian diaspora.
I was a teenager when I arrived to the US, now I am in my early 40s, but I am not numb, I cry a lot and lost my sleep since the war started. I get mad at my teenage kids when they say they are numb to this war. But I guess everyone’s reaction is different. Our TV doesn’t get turned off, and every single day wherever I am I have to liaten to Mr. Arstrun for his briefing on what is actually happening the battleground.