So, about Chernobyl. This post will be a bit of a self-pity one, and a realisation that I had a trauma when I was a kid that I've kept ignoring for years and years. I mean, not the sort of trauma that has seen me in need of professional help, but now that this TV show is there, I've had a growing sense of unease and I've realised just how BAD it was back then, and how it has colored the lives of so many afterwards. Even people far, far away from that nuclear power plant.
In 1986 I was 11 (I was turning 12 later that year). I live in Sweden, my family is a farmer and forester family, we lived largely off the land, we picked berries, hunted, ate the meat off our own animals, drank the milk from our own cows. Not much was bought in a store back then, food wise. Sure, butter and things, I mean, we weren't churning our own damn butter, it wasn't the 1800s.
Remember, I was 11 at the time, I remember this through the lense of a kid, watching my parents and uncles (who all were involved in the farming/foresting somehow) be very scared. I remember we were being kept indoors a lot. We weren't allowed to go out into the nearby forest and play, until we knew more what was happening, how it'd affect us. Eating berries, mushrooms, or any meat hunted, was a big no-no. The word 'bequerel' was on everyone's lips, constantly. How much bequerel was safe? When would we be able to eat off the land again? In one year? Ten? What about our domestic animals? Would we all get cancer now?
Obviously, we weren't dropping dead. The real suffering happened by those directly involved in that accident at Chernobyl, but man. It was scary. It was terrifying.
So, I want to watch this show and I don't want to watch it. I'll probably watch it at some point. And once more get angry at humanity's penchance for ruining their own world.
Maybe this isn't the best forum for cathartic posts, but fuck it. Chernobyl was bad. That they made a TV show about it, is a good reminder for everyone. I have barely thought about that in over a decade, but now it all comes back and we shouldn't forget.