Monday morning, August 14th, 8AM Israel time (GMT+2) - ceasefire.

 

That afternoon the first "back to routine" instructions started coming from the Home Front Command. Back to routine... what is routine? How do you get "back" to it after a month of war? The silence is eerie. I find myself looking for the sirens, waiting for them, constantly checking my watch to see how long it's been and if it's time for them to come (some times they came in certain hours or batches). I can't sleep at night. Still can't. The nightmares started about 2 weeks ago. But they continue. Sirens and booms and planes flying over the house fill my dreams and I find myself unable to fall asleep until after midnight every night.

 

It's hard to believe that just this week, just 5 days ago, the missiles still flew over my head. The sirens still pierced my ears 5, 6, 10, 16 times a day. I went to the Gym on Wednesday for the first time in over a month. It was hard and I can still feel my abs now. I thought it would make it easier for me to "get back to routine" but the pilates class, which is usually too packed with women and often if your're late you can't join for lack of space, was still empty. We were 5. only 5 women. In the moments before class all of us started talking about how we feel,how it was, experiences of war - where were you when this missile fell here/there? Then the conversation moved to criticism of the government.

 

The media still discusses the war. Our soldiers are still out there and on Thursday the sirens went off in the north. They claimed it was a mistake, false alarm, malfunction. But earlier that day they claimed they identified a single launch of a rocket. People in the region said they heard a loud explosion.

 

The police is looking for the fallen rockets. Many of them (most i think) fell in "open spaces". So they are looking for them to detonate them so that no one gets hurt. That means the booms go on. We hear them constantly because every time they find something - they detonate it.

 

People are down, depressed, scared. No one believes it is over. We all know that it isn't. It's just a matter of time until the next round. Question is: when will it be? Will it be in days? months? years? How can you get back to routine that way?

 

Today I met up with friends and we went to a mall. A mall that was closed for a month. It was PACKED with people. It's a place that is always full but today it was something else. The restaurants were PACKED. People finally, for the first time in over a month, went out shopping and just hanging out.

 

It's an atmosphere of mixed emotions here - happiness and sadness. You're laughing one moment and enjoying a cup of coffee with friends and the next moment your eyes catch a glimpse of the weekend papers and you see names of killed soldiers or Doom's day prophecies... and you cry. You cry for the ones who will never return, you cry for the ones who were kidnapped and kept god knows where, you cry for the people who lost their houses, you cry for a month of your life lost, you cry because you are scared and tired and weary.

 

Is that the routine we are expected to get back to?

 

***note: for security reasons I do not specify locations and names of cities and malls in this post ***