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…

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…

I'm free at last...I'm free to be happy and satisfied with life. It may sound cliché, but it took a long time for me to be this happy with life as it is. I always had to have something to look forward to and then I could say, ' I'm happy'. But now i feel i can just be happy because I look forward to everyday... It's important to me to feel this way and to state it because i worked hard to get to this point, to this acceptance...i had to fight and i did and now i got what i wanted...pure happiness and satisfaction and a free mind and a whole lot of other great things...

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.

Last night I went out with my girl friend D. We had dinner at La Madeleine. I had mushroom soup, she had the chicken pesto pasta. I love La Madeleine; I literally feel like I’m in Europe. I told D it was a perfect place for a date. She laughed. We talked for hours about school, boys, life, religion; we had so much to say. We both realized how much we’d grown since our freshman year; now we had fresh, new perspectives. We laughed about our junior year and how we’d thought it would never end. I was happy that I could tell her I was happy. It felt good to be happy; it feels good…
Next year we’ll be on different roads; things will be unpredictable, exciting, frightening, but we’ll get through them just like we got through four years of high school. The important thing is remembering that laughter and a sense of humor can make life what it’s supposed to be, a joyous ride, a fun game, a comedy series…