But if the NATO never expanded, these Russian butchers would have been completely normal, peaceful people.

I’m hoping somebody would send this to the Pope and other “but the NATO” individuals.

People in first class start their day by chugging mimosas at 10 am. I asked for orange juice and started composing a message to my husband saying “long live the jihad” but then realized it’s not the best idea at boarding. So I substituted with “long live Arestovich.”

My husband is the cutest. Yesterday as I was packing for my sad trip, he gave the following speech:

“Arestovich says [these days we don’t start any sentence without referencing Arestovich first] that there are different ways of being a soldier of jihad. You can strap explosives to your vest and go blow up somebody. But if you can’t do that, there are other ways to wage jihad. You can do ideological propaganda. Or even just have pro-jihad thoughts that you conceal from everybody. And that, too, makes you a soldier of jihad. I’m not good with offering emotional support, so I decided to support you in other ways. For your flight tomorrow, I got you first-class airplane tickets.”

Absolutely everything he ever communicates is delivered in this form. I literally never know what will come out of his mouth at any time because he has such a different way of thinking from me. It’s endlessly fascinating.

I’m in the Admiral’s Club lounge right now, enjoying the gift from the jihad.

And this is all part of that terrible fluidity of existence that I keep talking about. Nothing is a given. Nothing just is. Everything is open to questioning. Everything is ripe for a change at any moment.

The problem is that this is intolerable to the human psyche that values stability above all. That’s why the best things in life just are. My kid is my kid. Nothing can change that. God is “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing and eternally the same.” Eternally the same, got it? The best relationships are rooted in permanence. Predictability and routines heal. Upheaval and unpredictability wound. Moving house is considered a major trauma because it is. People aren’t furniture. Although even furniture will get damaged if you drag it around all the time.

To enter Canada as a Canadian citizen, you need to download an app, upload paperwork into it, answer five million questions, receive six million stern warnings, and receive a QR code. None of which guarantees entry into the country of your citizenship.

Apparently, you no longer qualify as a citizen if you don’t have a smartphone where the app and the documents should be uploaded.

I still remember when citizenship didn’t require additional purchases, technology, and documentation. Citizenship simply was. Like biological sex. It didn’t need to be questioned and re-negotiated. But now a passport is worth nothing without vaccine passports, fresh COVID tests, quarantine plans, doctor notes, and QR codes. We have sacrificed something huge for. . . what, exactly? What has been gained? How was citizenship taken away from us just like that? The younger people won’t even remember how it used to be.

What have we done?