Chapter 3: Numbness

I had dreamed of going to a top university in the United States for the last couple of years. I thought I wouldn't want anything else in my life if only I could get into a good school there. It would be a dream come true, like the ones they show in their movies, the girls whose dreams come true and get to go to Yale (Gilmore Girls), to Princeton (A Cinderella Story) and to Harvard (Legally Blond). It's funny how you always want to have the things that you can't have. And I wasn't an exception.

I'm a huge movie fan and back in Iran I used to always go and watch the "good" movies in a movie theater, cause they are hundred percent better on a big screen in a dark room. But still I always envied Americans for being able to watch those "good" Hollywood movies in movie theaters. I couldn't wait to go to the US and watch a blockbuster on an IMAX screen, and now that I'm here, oh boy do I miss watching an Iranian movie, and there are many of them out there since I came, all "good" ones.

It was "Hush! Girls don't scream" in a mid-summer afternoon. It was my last day in Iran and I had to go see one last movie. There were two movies which I thought were worth watching but there was no way I could cover both in that last day, so we chose this one. I say we, because going to the movie theater was a family event. My mom and dad are both into movies and we made sure to always go watch movies together as a family.

The movie was sad, very sad and poorly directed. Although it hit a very sensitive and important subject, it failed to iterate it in a believable manner. We came out of the movie theatre somehow dissatisfied, wishing we had chosen the other movie. Looking at my watch, I kept thinking we might still make it to another movie, but I knew it is not going to be possible. My brother and I sat down on the back seat of the car and he told me to take a selfie with him with our movie tickets in our hands. That was the last selfie we took. It's been two years since.

We came back home and got ready, checking everything for the one last time. After all, in a couple of hours, I was going to fly away and God knows when I would be back. Two suitcases and a carry-on. That's all I could take. I put everything (mostly books and notebooks) that I couldn't stuff in the suitcase on my desk in my room. I told my mom to send them to me as soon as she can. We probably took off to the airport much sooner that we should have, because we didn't want to hit any unexpected traffic. Imam Khomeini International Airport is a bit far from the city so we had a long way to get there. This is where everything stops having a shade of reality on. As soon as I get into the car, I can't distinguish reality from dream. My memory is blurry form there onwards. I hardly remember what happened in the car, what we discussed, the last people I called to say goodbye to, what songs we played, nothing. We got to the airport.

Salim arrives with some of my very good college friends, all boys. The flight is very late at night, or better to say early in the morning and I told my girl friends that they shouldn't come. Salim's visa status is still unknown but I'm very hopeful and don't even think that I'm saying goodbye to him. We take a couple of group photos, with my friends, with my family, with Salim and my family and then I should start to get going. I hug them one by one, not crying at all which is very weird. I can see that my mom is amazingly controlling herself not to cry, but to my surprise, I'm too zoned-out to even realize what is exactly happening. My dad helps me take the luggage after the security check and then I hug him for one last time and that's it. They are all back there, behind the walls and I'm on the other side.

My aunt's husband is also flying, with a different airline, to go see his daughters and wife in California so I find him near the gates and we kill time together. Not remembering what we talk about either. He goes off eventually to his gate and I'm all by myself now. Salim gave me a box when we were saying goodbye and he told me to open it after I passed the security check. I open it up, there are flowers inside with a card. He used to buy me flowers all the time and I used to dry them up and decorate my room with them. In the card, he tells me to dry these too when I get there and keep them in my room. I read the card, look at the flowers, but still, I don't cry.

I get on the plane, it's going to be a short flight to Qatar and then a long one to Chicago. I sleep on the first flight and end up watching movies and sleeping in between on my second one. Again everything I remember has a shade on it, a blurry shade. Looking back at that flight, I remember how suspended I felt, just like the plane, in between two places, one of them completely unknown. It didn't feel like a long flight at all cause I was mostly asleep and for the rest, unaware of my surroundings. We land on Chicago.

I get off the plane and head to this long line to get to this officer who checks my documents. I'm sleepy, jet lag and still not in the moment. He asks me where this apartment that I wrote on my form is, and I hear him asking me what "department" I'm going to, and I say with confidence: "Computer science sir!". He looks at me very angrily, and says impatiently:"Are you following me?" because I guess it was obvious that I'm not fully aware of anything that is going on around me. He repeats the question and I tell him it's my dad's uncle apartment. He lets me go. I head to the baggage claim area and when I get there I see my suitcases having been put down the for me from the baggage carousal. I look around to see if someone approaches me. Aren't they going to rummage in my stuff, and make sure that I'm not bringing something illegal to their country? Seems like they are not. I pick my stuff up and head to the gate that opens up to the airport. My dad's uncle and his wife are there waiting for me.

That day was my first day in the United States of America, but it felt like a dream. I wasn't fully awake, or fully recovered from the huge change that has happened. My dad's uncle apartment was right in front of Lake Michigan, with a gorgeous view. I sat down with them and chatted a little bit but couldn't keep myself awake for a long period of time and they knew that so they suggested that I go take a nap. I slept for a very long time and then wanted to go for a walk alongside lake Michigan. I saw my first gay couple who were also taking a walk and asked them to take a picture of me and the lake. I walked a bit more and then went back to go to dinner with my dad's family somewhere on Michigan ave. that later on became one of my favorite places in the US.

The next day my cousin and her husband, who drove all the way from Virginia to Illinois, came to pick me up and drop me off at Champaign, the city that I was going to stay at for the next two years of my life. My cousin practically packed a complete household set for me. She had an extra set for when she moved in to the US that she didn't use anymore and she brought them all for me. It was when we started unpacking them that I realized I don't need to do any shopping for my new place, expect maybe some grocery. The helped me do my shopping, set the place up and unpack everything. It was all done in one day thanks to them. At the end of the day, we ordered Pizza, made some salad and I had my first dinner at my new place with two lovely guests. The next morning they headed back to Virginia and I went to my department and the International Students Services to take care of registration and other necessary procedures. I was busy the whole day, not knowing how the day passed by. It was at the end of the day, when I was back home, and it was dark outside that I realized I was all by myself and I finally started crying.