Home. Our safety, our family, our fights, our good-night kisses and good-mornings. We all have our own definition of home. For my best friend Shubi, home is her house in New Delhi, India. Home is the memories of her grandpa taking her to school. It’s the room she slept in. It’s where she fought with her older brother.
What we first grow to love can never be replaced. Whether it’s our first love, our first pet or the first home we grew up in. Replacing them is almost impossible, but learning to make new ones is not.
I refused to call America home for a long time. Maybe it wasn’t a refusal, maybe it was. I always think of Tehran and say that is my home. Now, America has given me another definition and I’ve grown to own it.
Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” was right when she said there is no place like home. My home in Tehran can never be replaced with any other one. My childhood memories can never be replaced with any others. Replacing isn’t what I’m trying to do. Accepting and owning the new, that’s what I’ve done.

Down in the water, the world becomes completely different. It’s like you’re in a whole new place, a blurry, but nice place. It’s quiet, it’s blue, and it’s peaceful. Once you’re in, you don’t want to get out.

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