I’m leaving home to go home. Isn’t it strange?

About nine to ten months before this I couldn’t imagine that while talking about Iowa or the USA generally, I will use the words  “We”, “Our country” and “Home”. It’s hard to believe that I literally have no time left. It breaks my heart into thousands of pieces and wherever I go I will leave that piece there. It was the hardest decision to leave my country without knowing what is going to happen with. Is it safe? Are the people nice? Will I be able to make friends since the culture is so different from mine? Those questions were not letting me sleep for close to a month before coming here. And now, when it’s the time to leave I don’t want to sleep, I want to stay awake enjoying every single minute here. I don’t know where life is gonna take me but wherever I go, whatever I do the US, Iowa and ADM will have a big impact on any of the choices I make. You guys even don’t know how much my perspective about life has been changed while interacting with you. I saw so many surprising, weird, interesting and life-changing things and I’m glad I was given this opportunity. My life was different a year ago and now, when I have only one month left I want to do all the things I haven’t managed to. It’s really stupid to compare but it feels like you have only one month to live and you are gonna die soon. I know it sounds weird or funny, but actually, I have that feeling now. The Lida here became a different person than the Lida that left Armenia nine months ago. Here I open myself up to exploring a whole new part of me full of new ideas, a different mindset, and an individual influenced by many different cultures.

I don’t want to lose that Lida when I go back. I’ve met so many new people and every single one of them has taught me something different. The US is a melting pot filled with a diversity of nationalities and cultures. It’s YOUR choice to take good things about the culture and adapt yourself to them. It’s YOUR choice to see the good and beautiful parts of every nationality, belief, and culture. You gotta choose where to go and what to do. It’s YOUR freedom.

This experience has taught me how to respect everybody no matter where they come from. This experience has taught me how to look at things from different sides. This experience has taught me how to overcome obstacles and difficulties without my parents, friends – by myself. I would never trade this experience for anything else.

I would like to say a special thanks to all the teachers and students of our amazing school for helping and supporting me. Thanks for helping me from the very beginning when I couldn’t deal with computer and google classroom. Thanks for teaching me new words, slangs (even though I still don’t understand most of them), explaining the things I couldn’t understand. Thanks for the subtitles in the videos we watched, thanks for giving me a new name – Laida :)(Lie-da). Thanks for all the questions and curiosity which showed you really care. Thousands of thanks for all the amazing things that all of you guys did for me. I am beyond grateful and blessed to have Iowa, Adel, and ADM in my life.

Goodbye.

No, sorry not goodbye. See you soon my second home.

Best, Lida Asilyan

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