You know those annoying little status updates that are basically forms you fill out to tell your fake friends on Facebook information about yourself that they probably never wanted to know in the first place?
In the current one I'm thinking of, a friend chooses an age for you to focus on. Then you write the gist of where you were, who you were with, what you were doing, and what your hopes and fears were. My friend chose age 19 for me, which was a significant year in my life. I was moving from my parents' respective homes in Northern Virginia to Long Island, New York to live with my then-boyfriend (now ex-fiance). I was struggling in community college classes. I had hopes of happiness and fears of failure and heartbreak.
I chose age 18 for my mother. This is what she wrote:
"A few months after finishing high school I turned 18. A few months later the government closed all the universities. One year later I left Iran and never went back."
A stunned "wow" and a long exhale were all I could manage when I read this. I already knew this information objectively but I had never felt it before.
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