Childhood

When you sit on a swing, you can’t help but wonder what it’d feel like if you were a child again. A child who doesn’t know right from wrong, who doesn’t need to be responsible and doesn’t live by expectations.
I miss being that child. I miss being careless and untangled. I miss the swings and the merry-go-rounds and the cotton candies. I miss the ignorance and the naïve nature of a child. I want to be a child just one more time, just one last time.
“Mommy, I’m lost,” the child inside me whispers.
I sit on the swing and I want to pretend that I don’t know all the things I know. I want to remember what it feels like to be ignorant and incognizant of corruption, discrimination, hatred, racism and …
I’m a child. I’m on a swing, my feet going up and down, my eyes closed, my hair floating. I’m not aware of my mother calling me to get down, I’m unaware of the wind, the rain, the passage of time and all the ifs and buts that stand in my way.
I’m a child and nothing matters to me, but the joy of being on this swing…

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R and I were eating breakfast and I thought of our childhood wishes. The little girl inside of me always wanted a Barbie doll house. She wanted Barbie, Ken, and their son to have their own home. That was her biggest wish. Now, after 18 years, I want an airplane ticket, and I don’t care about the destination.
When we’re older, is it possible to let go of our dreams the way we let them go as children?
We finish our breakfast and laugh. I’m thinking of the little girl who never got the Barbie doll house…

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Rain often times makes me gloomy. I feel trapped and the atmosphere automatically becomes depressing. I loved rainy days when I was a child. I loved it because we almost never had rain in Tehran. Summer days were blazing hot; winters were just cold. Rain was something people had to pray for, especially those who lived in Southern Iran. For them rain is pleasure, fun, different, even freedom to some extent. I remember how I used to look out the window and reach out to feel the raindrops on my fingertips. Sometimes it would be pouring immensely and I would feel a sudden rush of excitement. Those days I loved rain; I wanted so much to walk in the rain. But now, here in America, the excitement I used to feel for rain is gone.

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I always wanted to believe I was missing Iran. But I knew damn well it wasn’t Iran I missed. What I actually missed were the memories of a life I once knew, belonging, childhood, and a picture-perfect family.
It’s hard for me to admit it after all this time. I thought about it a lot. In fact, for six years I’ve been trying to figure out how to escape from the constant thoughts of Iran. I wanted to stop feeling guilty for leaving because I knew it wasn’t a choice I made. I’d been trying hard to focus on my own life rather than the life they live. I love them, my people; they’re part of me and always will be. But, I can’t live everyday thinking about what they don’t have. I want to live my life and just appreciate what I’ve been given.
I’m not sure if I’ve escaped completely, from the guilt and well, the depressing thoughts, but I do feel free for the most part. The hardest thing now is knowing I can never have that life back. Iran will be on the news and will be talked about on the radio, but it will be a memory for me. A nice memory of childhood…it will be a beautiful past that made me who I am today…but it will remain as the past…

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