My answer to friends and family asking how we are doing right now.
It's 4 AM. The kids are asleep. My wife is next to me, half-awake, scrolling her phone. Neither of us is saying much. Outside, it's quiet now. But every few hours, the sky lights up and the government alerts blare on your phone, that sharp, jarring sound that shoots your heart rate up no matter how many times you hear it.
This is Dubai. The city where safety was never a question. The city you moved to because it was safe. The city where the biggest disruption to normal life was a heavy rainstorm.
Tonight, Iranian missiles are being intercepted over our skyline. There's smoke rising from the Palm. The Fairmont is on fire. The airport took damage. One person dead in Abu Dhabi. And in homes across this city, every parent with young children is lying awake asking the same questions.
What happens next? How do I keep my family safe? Can we stay here?
I don't have answers. Nobody does right now. And that's what makes this different from the rains, different from COVID, different from anything Dubai has faced. Those were disruptions. This is something else entirely. A magnitude higher, a category apart. This is a war unfolding over the city your children sleep in.
The anxiety isn't about one explosion or one alert. It's the accumulation. Every boom in the distance, every siren on your phone, every news notification adds a thin layer of dread. And when you're a parent, that dread doesn't sit in your head. It sits in your chest.
You look at your 3-year-old sleeping peacefully and your newborn in the crib, and the only thought is: I need to protect them. But protect them from what? From whom? You start running scenarios. Should we leave? Where would we go? How fast can we get out if we need to?
Every expat family in Dubai is running the same calculus tonight. Not out of panic but out of responsibility. Because when you chose this city, you chose it for your family. And now that contract feels uncertain.
Dubai has always been a promise of safety, opportunity, and a good life. That promise hasn't been broken. But tonight, for the first time, it's being tested. And the families who built their lives here are watching, waiting, and hoping this is the worst of it.
It's almost dawn. The alerts have gone quiet for now. The kids are still asleep.
I'll figure out the answers tomorrow. Tonight, that's enough.
I am still a bit shaken.