I didn't believe it then or decided not to. I thought it was being complacent and it was cheating. I thought it was not just and I tried hard to keep belonging to the old place. Eleven years later I finally have come to understand what my uncle meant by that statement and have gotten to a point where I look at it that way too. Instead of seeing it as a limiting, complacent, coward point of view, I see it as abundance, having choices, and more traveling!
It is also the first time that I have come to accept that I am an 'immigrant' and not just an 'ex-pat' and a person in transition. That by itself brings a lot of other choosing. What is the best place to live in? what are the things that you should be looking for in a place that you chose to live in? It is not anymore as if you were born somewhere and it was your destiny to live there and the pros and cons of the place were just part of the package. It is now more like you have a multitude of places to chose from and you can set, prioritize, and decide on the criteria that makes a specific place appealing to you. This indeed is a great, free and open ended field with a lot of questions and a lot of unknowns.....
The first day I walked on the lawn of the university I had moved to attend in the U.S., it was a sunny beautiful August day, students were walking around in colorful outfits, the sky was vast and reflected the freedom and independence that was thrown at me upon this move. I had the world in front of me. Nothing like the university days of Iran, with the scarf, the morale ladies checking your outfit and bags at the entrance, the constant fear of what not to do wrong, and the ultimate lack of freedom. What was surprising was that I didn't feel 'happier'.
I told myself "هر جا که بروی آسمان همان رنگ است", which means, "every where you go the sky is the same color."
Wherever you go, the sky is the same, it is what you make out of it that makes the difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment