My thought

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…

Read more

My mother was singing a traditional Iranian song by Marzieh (a famous singer) and it made me think of something. Not that I hadn’t thought of it before, but at that moment I suddenly thought of how much my mother has given up. She left a country where she’d lived fifty years of her life in. She gave up a life-time of memories, songs, people, culture, and everything that was life for her. For me, it was only eleven years and although those years meant a lot, they weren’t significant enough to shape who I am today. They weren’t big enough to give me an identity. But for someone like my mother, those years had shown her one culture, one setting, one language, one foundation of life. She had already found, I suppose, some sort of identity for herself, some form of reliance. But she had the courage to start over, begin from zero, start a whole new map of life…It amazes me, her power and strength, her courage and confidence to take such a jump, start a new life after years of one identity and be born again…But I see why and how she was able to do it: it was all for freedom…My mother is a believer, she didn’t think it was impossible to start anew and live in happiness. She didn’t think she was too old to be happy and have an American life. She was a believer and still is. Her book of life used to be pages of sadness and loss, but she refused to leave them that way. She wanted something and she knew it was possible to be a dreamer…

Read more

Six years have passed but I’m still reminded of home. Every piece of this city has a part of Tehran in it. Sometimes it’s a small shop, sometimes it’s a street, and sometimes it’s just a smell or scent that takes me back to the past. But however small the reminders, Tehran remains a part of me…

Read more

They told me high school will be the best four years of your life. They lied.
I realized it my sophomore year when I felt lost and unemotionally unprepared. Suddenly I was no longer stable; I was living in a sea of stress and didn’t know how to call for help. My junior year was the same. Life was demanding too much, school was demanding too much; I was a wreck…
Things have changed though. For the better I mean. I am now in my fourth year of high school and for the first time I am at peace with myself. I’ve stopped blaming myself for the things I can’t do. I don’t love myself yet, but I’ve come a long way. Everything is normal. Peace and tranquility, I am happily looking forward to whatever the future will bring. I don’t expect the world or life itself for that matter to make sense. Living and enjoying my life are much more important than figuring out what life is supposed to mean.
My perspectives have changed, maybe I am wiser. Maybe not. But one thing I know for sure is that I am happy and I have accepted who I am…I’ve never felt this way before. It’s beautiful. Life.

Read more

I’m getting older. I see it now. Time is fleeting. I can’t stop the clock. But I think it’s ok. It’s okay to get older, I’m okay with it, it’s exciting. I’m no longer a little kid who fears the future; the future that I always tried to avoid is now here. I have to face it now… I have to trust myself…

Read more

Iranians are experts at going to airports and saying good-bye. It has become a normal procedure for most families. Iranian women especially are good at crying. They cry incessantly and can’t stop hugging each other, while the men watch and seem to have it under control, although underneath, they’re probably hurting just as much. In a way, Iran has become an airport itself. These days, almost every 20 year-old’s dream is to find a way to leave the country with America as the destination in mind. Smart and ambitious, these young adults leave their heart-broken families so they can have a real life. Freedom for them means everything.
So this airport, this country, this nation, this Iran that has so much beauty, love, history, tradition and culture, continues to hide them until no one will remember what it once was, maybe not even the historians. The once great Persia is now a land of prisoners, from children to teens to young adults who are caught in the middle of political entanglements. Childhood memories are now the memories of departures and flight numbers and planes headed to somewhere across the Atlantic. Photo albums now have entire sections dedicated to snap shots of good-bye parties and airport get-togethers, where every member is either red-eyed from crying or is forcing a smile for that one last picture where they’re all together.
…
The nine-year old girl who looked up to her older siblings, didn’t get the chance to know them while they were still there. Her trips to the airport were too many for a child her age. Her childhood ended too soon. Her memories of the past are now bittersweet. She is now in America, watching, waiting…Will things change? Will families ever get to live in their own country, or will they always continue to pray for an American visa right before they go to bed and dream the American dream?

Read more

New York City never ceases to greet me with a warm welcome…a welcome that always makes me want to go back and say another hello and maybe one without a goodbye.
Every time I go to NYC, I can’t stop thinking what life there could be like for me… Although most people think it’s hard to live in a place like New York, I don’t think I’d mind having a little excitement in my life…New York City has so much energy and power that it doesn’t even let me think of its problems…
If you love something, I think you should go for it…so I think I’ll listen to my heart and if everything works out I’ll give it a try…But for me, no matter where in America I am, the freedom that I have is more precious and more important and more valuable than anything else…so what if all I have is a suburban life, so what if all I have is an urban life, what matters to me is that I have the freedom to live and be happy, something that so many people are searching for and are struggling to achieve…
As always, I had a wonderful time in New York. The city was still amazing and it was still telling met to stay. A part of me was sad to say goodbye, as if somehow I knew I may belong there one day…is it belonging or is it just the excitement and adventure that I’m waiting to get? I don’t really know…So once again I was lost in thoughts as I took a last glance at the large towers above me and at the busy streets…there was a big question mark in my mind…

Read more

The summer breeze is almost gone. Soon autumn will come again and the loads of homework and reading will take over my life once again…
Sometimes I think I too am searching for something…something that I don’t really know yet…something inside of me that my heart won’t let go of…
I’ve always wanted to escape but I never could…
I never could let go of my memories in Tehran…
I never could let go of my people…
It’s not easy to escape a place your heart knows so well…it’s like a map, sewed in my heart…I can never possibly let all of it go…all of my guilt for leaving…all of my wanting to go back…it would be like letting go of everything I know. Everything I love. Everything I have. Everything I need to survive…I need my past to survive in this strange yet wonderful world i live in now…I need it to help me go on, to help me move on, to help me find myself again, to help me find my desires and my hopes and my dreams and everything else that belongs to me…i never want to escape those thoughts or memories, i just want to be able to let it be a part of me, but not something that would make me feel guilt or pain or loss or shame… i want it to be a part of who i am but not something that brings me down, not something that tears me apart…

Read more

I can’t sleep at night. Maybe it’s insomnia. Or maybe I just want to be awake while it’s still summer time for me and I can relax, look at the moon light and sleep through the morning… I feel the days are too short for me, too little time to catch up on the things I missed while I was in school. Summers are always like this, they come and last a short a time, but they’re enjoyable. My summers have usually been adventurous. One summer I was in San Diego, California for a week; one in Istanbul, Turkey; one in Tehran, Iran; two or three in Europe, on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or the biggest movie theater in the world in Brussels, Belgium; three in Manhattan and New Jersey, one in Long Island…So many wonderful memories, so little time…
It’s hard to enjoy the moment. No, it’s hard to remind yourself to enjoy the moment. If you ask if I’m happy, I’d say not really. But satisfied? Yes, I’m satisfied…

Read more

I get angry at the world for not letting me in, for shutting me out, for laughing at me, for mocking me, for blaming me, for hating me…
When I’m depressed, life becomes so meaningless that I forget my passions and lust for life, for the adventurous life I fantasize in Manhattan where everything happens, live, right in front of your eyes…I cry myself out and feel sorry for myself, but deep down I know I’ll be okay the next day, I know the world won’t win, I know I’ll get myself out no matter what’s in front of me, even if it is my own desperate image, the part of me that wants to cry and be left alone, the one who craves for attention, the one who needs to exist, even if it is an existence only for others…
A lot of us go through these feelings, this hopelessness and fear of the world around us, the fear of meeting new people, fitting in, being loved, being noticed, and…existing.
The window of hope is not always open, my window too sometimes shuts me out, the rain pours outside and leaves me trapped inside, but I can open it if I want to…it is never too late…

Read more