Last year, when I was sitting behind my desk making applications for different universities abroad, I could imagine how my life would change if I came to another country. But I wasn’t thinking of how other people’s lives might also change. At that time, the last thing that came to my mind was not surely missing my sister’s wedding, or my niece’s birthday when she turns 8, or the first day of my nephew’s school. Or even the day my best friend gets heartbroken, or the day another friend of mine meets Mr. Maybe soul mate. Sometimes you don’t need to do anything special. You simply want just to be there. It is quite tough to miss important moments.
There is a cherished friend of mine who has helped me a lot coping with my issues mentally since I moved to Europe. We didn’t talk for a while, and I wondered if something was wrong with him, so I texted him and asked if his visa procedure has gone well. He told me that he got rejected and he felt like a loser, feeling ashamed to talk with me about it. The same case happened with my best friend as well. She was admitted to an art program in Canada, and she got rejected for the visa twice. After much effort for a year, she got nothing. I am deeply sad hearing these things. I can’t help but wonder what if I was there. I know that I can’t change things much, but I could at least give them a sincere hug. It bothers me that I am not there physically.
Things went from bad to worse when my sister told me that she got cancer suspicious. I cried my eyes out hearing the news. The few weeks waiting for her test result was indeed such a hard time. I prayed for her every day. A big part of my heart has always been there.
The fact is that I never thought about these things before. I knew that I would probably miss plenty of family reunions, birthday parties, celebrations, and trips. However, never had I thought that it would drive me up the wall when I am not there in difficult moments for my beloved ones.
To me, life is meaningless without people who I love and by whom I am loved. What is the point of having several adventurous, exciting experiences when you have no one to share them with?
I still don’t have anyone in Europe. I fulfill all my emotional needs with my family and friends in Iran. But my biggest fear is to lose them someday. If I do, then I literally have no one. Neither here nor there.
I have missed so many things, and there are so many other things on the way to be missed. I have been told to accept this and move on because that’s life. You miss something, and you gain something else. But is that really true? Can’t we just have it all?
A slice of me 