I looked around me, at all the Iranians, who like us, had wanted to enjoy some Persian music on a Saturday night. They come to enjoy themselves, dance the night away, and maybe get close to memories of what they left behind. Whether leaving was a must or a choice, they left. When you leave a place, you don’t just leave it physically; you leave your emotions, your attachments.
I thought about the people around me. I thought about what they left behind. I thought about what we had in common. I don’t know everybody’s story, but I think we all have something in common. We left things behind. We left a part of us behind. We packed suitcases with or without reason. We made a decision to say good-bye to whatever we loved or didn’t love. We parted from someone, from something. For some of us, leaving was a risk. For some of us, leaving was the only option. Sometimes, I think to myself what it would be like if we could all live in our lands, wake up to see our own dawn, our own sky. What would it be like if we were no longer strangers, outsiders, or foreigners?

“What do you do when you’re not working?” he asks Khadije.
“I watch DVDs and cook.” Khadije says.
“You cook for whom?”
“My cousins. I cook for everybody. They don’t do anything. I have to do all the cooking,” Khadije says again with a rich accent.
I listen to them talk for a few more minutes. They too left their countries. They too wanted the American dream. Maybe not Hollywood and fame, but a full-time job and a guarantee to freedom.
“My life is in my country,” I hear Khadije say.
I feel bad for her. I want to tell her, I know what you mean. Although I built a life here at an early age, I still feel that I understand her, that I feel the pain in her voice.
Sometimes we have to give up the things we love, the things we think are permanent. We have to make sacrifices. We have to be strong. Khadije, just like many other immigrants here, will eventually get used to her new life. She won’t forget what she lost, but she will know that it was for the best. She will know that it was worth it. She will know.

I open the window and I smell Iran. I smell Tehran. I smell familiarity. I smell our kooche and the rooftop where I rode my bike. I smell the early mornings when Mom woke me up, made me a hot tea with lots of sugar, and walked me to school. I smell the streets where I rode crowded buses, lost among veils and chadors. Iran. What does it mean? What part of it do I miss? What part of it do I want? If I go back again, how familiar will these things be? Will I smell home?
I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I no longer miss that land. I’m afraid that my mind has lost track of its shape, its map, its Alborz Mountains and its midnight sky. I’m afraid that I no longer feel nostalgic, melancholy.
I miss pronouncing “Iran”. I miss writing “Iran”. I miss being a little girl, hopping my way back home, not knowing what good-bye or homesickness means.
I close the window and shut my eyes. I smell my watermelon-scented perfume and forget how much I miss Tehran.

“You took forever!” the woman exclaimed when her number was finally called. The nurse smiled and said, “Welcome to the health department”. I sat uncomfortably for more than two hours to get a TB test. The lines were long. Little children screamed and yelled; I wanted them to shut up.
After an unsuccessful appointment that ended up being rescheduled, I left the health building. I had to walk home in the snow since Mom had to catch a class. I felt awkward walking by myself, crossing the street, and eating alone at a grocery store. I’m not used to doing things alone. I’m not used to ordering food alone. I ate a cold turkey sandwich, uneasily looking around at other tables. Then I walked to the nearest Barnes & Noble book store, rummaged books that I had no intention of reading, flipped through a Vogue and Vanity Fair magazine, while occasionally glancing at the Starbucks near the register. I felt unsure as I walked. I felt uncertain, in doubt, as if I were no longer in my own body. Was I afraid to be alone? Was it fear or unfamiliarity? Why is it so hard for us to be alone, unaccompanied? Why is it that in the presence of others, we manage to feel confident and relaxed? How do we get used to ourselves?

My black satin heels were killing me. My toes were jammed, hurting like hell. I wore them to feel good, sexy, over the top. My face was covered in foundation and makeup. I felt like it, that’s all. I felt like feeling pretty. I wanted to please myself. But, as I walked around the parking lot, tired in my heels, I thought about how being a woman is not easy. In a free country, a woman has so many clothes to choose from. She may even have a lot of men to choose from! In a free world, a woman is still a woman in a world full of men. She wants attention, power, money, the top job, the top car. If she’s the family type, she wants the house and the kids, but she wants her job too. In a world like ours, women compete not only against men, but against other women as well. It’s a competitive job. Being a woman, being a mother, a daughter, a sister, and a wife is not easy. Women want everything. They want sex, yet they don’t want to be objects of pleasure. They want money, yet they don’t want to give up having a family. They want to be good mothers, yet they will hire a babysitter. I admire women. I admire their desires, the sacrifices they make, the ambitions they have. In the Middle-East, women are fighters and believers. They too have dreams. They too have desires and ambitions. Women are beautiful. Their stories are beautiful. Their dreams are beautiful. There are women who fight, like my mother and her sister. There are women who stand up, like Rosa Parks. There are women who believe, like Harriet Tubman. There are women all around the world who have defined what a woman is. I’m proud of them. I’m proud of their hard work and ambition. I’m proud to be a woman.

It was a conscious decision, one that I should have made long ago.
I’m not always happy with what I write. Sometimes I want to shut the computer down, take a break, not write for a while. But that’s something I can’t do. I can’t because I depend on my keyboard. I depend on words, on thoughts that must be written, on stories, on sentences. I depend on writing. I have to write. I’m a lost ship when I don’t write. I’m floating. I’m bubbles. I’m nothing. I’m nothing without my words.
This dependency has come with costs. In a way it is my weak link because I depend on it too much. So in order to live up to this dependency, I now write more regularly, as often as my mind allows it.
When you write, you learn to dig dip, think. It’s all thinking. It’s all about deciding. Where do you put the comma? Where do you start a new paragraph? What is your last sentence, the one that will own the reader, the master of all other sentences?
I make many decisions, not just about writing. I made the decision to get a job, have my own beliefs, dye my hair, and believe in God. I made a decision last week when I was very happy, very satisfied. I decided it’s time I stop blaming myself for not being able to do things that are out of my reach, out of my field, out of my list of strengths. I decided it’s time I start believing in my own powers, my writing, my voice.
I decided it’s time I start loving myself.

My mother raised me as a “good kid”. She doesn’t remember me as a naughty, trouble-maker. She doesn’t have memories of me hitting my older siblings, running around, or secretly sneaking out of the house. She raised a rather quite girl who grew up wanting to please people, wanting their approval and acceptance. In a way, not breaking rules and needing to be as perfect as the word meant, was a burden.
I’m not a little girl anymore and I’ve made my mistakes along the way. In my own eyes, I have not been a perfectly innocent child. But in the eyes of most who know me, I’m the innocent, nice kid. I’m the kid who turns in homework on time and is never late to class. That’s the label they’ve put on me.
I’m thinking of the boyfriends I never had, the dates I never went on, the secret parties I never attended, the beer I never drank, the…But on a daily basis, I don’t have to think of these little things. I don’t have to think that maybe I missed out on something because I didn’t miss out. I lived life my own way. I decided to write. I decided to take it slow, whatever the “it” is. Society can label you, but you don’t have to keep that label.

Sadia and I sat on a curb, near the front door of the school. I laughed hysterically about something she said. The sun shined, almost making me believe it would be warm. But it was a cold afternoon and I was too lazy to take my coat out of my backpack. I realized how tired I was. I had been to all of my seven classes. But I felt happy, laid back. I didn’t have to have a reason for my laughter or for my silly behavior, or for not caring, for not thinking. I didn’t have to rationalize in my head. I no longer have to.
Sometimes you change more than your outside appearance. You change your beliefs, your attitude, your decisions. You change the way you think, the way you reason. You take control over how far you go with those thoughts. You don’t get carried away with facts that are beyond your control.
What if I hadn’t changed? What if I’d remained as broken and as lost as I had once been? I decided to stop questioning myself.
Maybe I just learned to laugh and take life easy. Maybe I worked my way to get there. Or maybe time changed me. I guess I’ll never know for sure how I learned the game. I’ll just know that I learned it.

Tonight is another Friday night and we’re walking to a new Starbucks we found in Old Town, Alexandria. For the first time we’re walking past unfamiliar roads. Yet these unfamiliar roads remind us of familiar places. They remind us of our trip to Istanbul and Belgium. They remind us of Tehran. A bus drives by and she tells me she misses riding one. At 7 p.m. we reach Starbucks, our savior. We cross the road and go in. There is a short line and I stand in front, searching the menu. This time I don’t know what to get. Normally I get a White Chocolate Mocha, a frappuccino, a hot chocolate, an Earl Grey tea, or a latte. I never get coffee because it tastes too bitter. So I keep looking and I still can’t decide. I finally order a hot vanilla crème and a latte for her. She wants a chocolate too, but I say no because I’m trying to cut on sweets. She buys it anyway. We sit on two couches by the window and drink in silence. We’re both looking out the window, watching cars and people. They’re blurry but we refuse to put our glasses on. “What do you know about the chemistry between two people?” She asks. I give her a blank look and then say, “Um, when people say we have a great chemistry, it means they somehow connect and have a common understanding.” She starts talking about her past again, her relationships, her job, her old colleagues and friends. She re-lives them by remembering certain memories or stories. I don’t ask. I listen to her and learn more about her. As she speaks, I think to myself. Is this her way of letting go of the past she left behind? Is this her way of rationalizing the decisions she made then? Or is this simply her way of overcoming nostalgia?
Sometimes you hold onto memories. You hold on to your past, to your mistakes and regrets. When do you let them go? Or do you?

I walked in, ready for my last session of therapy. As usual, I saw G’s bright smile and we exchanged a quick hello before I sat down in the waiting room. Minutes later I walked into her office and she told me about her new furniture. Instead of the old, red couches, she now had two black leather ones. We sat and I began talking. She was wearing another one of her sexy pairs of black high heels. We talked for 50 minutes and I told her I was happy and finally loved myself. I promised her I’d keep in touch via e-mail and would let her know when I heard from colleges.
I thought back to the first day I saw her. The first day I told her about my anxiety, my fears, and my inner problems. That was the first day I revealed an entire chapter of my life to a complete stranger, a stranger who became my most amazing friend. I talked and with every word I felt weak, heavy, as if I were a boat, slowly sinking. I felt like a broken glass and I couldn’t pick up the pieces. I sat there, wishing G would help me fix them. I wanted her to fix me. And she did. Together, we found my weaknesses and finally my acceptance to them.
I gave her one last hug before I wished her a happy time in England for her daughter’s wedding. “This isn’t good-bye, it’s good-bye to therapy,” She said and smiled.
We have our faults, our imperfections, our troubles, and our defects. But, there is a way to learn them, accept them, and even love them. When you love them, you can love yourself. You don’t have to be the “it” factor, the cover girl on a magazine, or the hero or heroine. What you can be is yourself and you can choose to love that self no matter how imbalanced or flawed it is.
I walked slowly down the steps, carrying my light-weighed backpack, towards the white door. I pushed the door open, remembering the times when I couldn’t push it open, when I didn’t have the want or the energy. A car stopped in front of me and a young girl came out, running past me. She was probably late and wanted to get in fast so she wouldn’t lose even five of those 50 minutes. I stood, feeling the vibe of February’s cool breeze.