What is your story?

Immigration is such a complicated and the most influential life process (in my opinion). With migration come many intensive changes; good or bad- who can possibly be the judge of that; after all, all the rights and wrongs are man made and full of human errors. With migration your family becomes a stranger, your new friend becomes your family and you become "the stranger" in the new land. Your mornings rapidly turn to midnights and nights become the early mornings. And it's when a cup of black coffee with extra espresso shots becomes a sweet companion for you, the early riser! You put pressure on your mother tongue to change itself ; to blend in and put on a new hat. Your brain works so hard days and nights to make this transition, this constant translation possible . Until one day, you wake up so proud remembering "last night you had a dream in your second language without any subtitle!" However, no matter how hard you try to become anew, there is always a little taste of Middle East underneath the lines and the scenes in your dreams, just like in your accent. After awhile you miss home, family and your mother tongue, so you start looking for any sign that takes you back to your sweet old memories, you begin making friends with whoever is from back home. When you start calling anyone who speaks your mother tongue , "friend," a confusion within a confusion is born and starts growing on you. And one day, you start questioning yourself and your new life style. " would I ever have a friendship/relationship with this person if I was back home?" - and The answer would most possibly be a "no." Then, a new chapter begins within you; you start a clean up in your life. This stage might take a while ,maybe several years. Finally, after you are done cleaning up, you are most likely half way through your life , and there is not much time left to waste for the next half. So you start picking and matching- paying close attention to details. You become as picky as you can get and start enjoying yourself, you adore whoever you've become, and yes you have every right in the universe to do so , because you have come a long way, the new worthwhile "you" had to take so many roles, wear so many masks until you finally came out, and all that took guts! Enjoy your worthwhile, complicated, unique, self-created "you";but, try to look back upon your life once in a while; if you do so, you will never judge a soul before you listen to her/his story! Salome N. Saz