The beginning of misfortunes and the suppression of our desires

Days full of mishaps and unfortunate events, black and strange - so strange that I am unable to describe them - began and flowed with terrible speed. I will remember those days later as a violent nightmare that I will never forget. Every time I imagine those unbearable days and review them, I can hardly believe that I spent those days like that. I want to look at many things with doubt, I want to deny the occurrence of many things. It is not very easy to understand what I suffered in those days, even for myself. It is better to call it the beginning of misfortunes and the sinking of our dreams into black soil; The period of being completely stuck in the swamp of darkness, the period in which I am still immersed and struggling to get out.

Where and from what moment should I start? I do not know. On Sunday, August 15, everyone went about their daily routines as usual. Since the universities were closed, I was at home and every day I read the news of the fall of the provinces on social networks; But we did not expect that the cable would also fall. Not many hours had passed when my mother returned home with distress and fear and said: "Kabul has fallen." We were all stunned. It is as if we have heard the news of the death of one of our loved ones. We had nothing to say. Only fear had taken over all of us. My father was not at home. On the same day, we tried very hard to contact my father, but we couldn't. He whispered thousands of words in my heart; But I still had hope and finally it was six o'clock in the evening when my father came home.

It was night and the silence surrounded the room. I could see the mixture of sadness and anxiety in the eyes of the family members. I feel sorry for everyone. Everyone was sitting motionless and immersed in a thoughtful and profound silence. I was sitting next to Kalkin and watching the clear moonlit sky that had cast a light over the city. I was heartbroken and what I experienced and saw on this day passed through my mind like a boring train passing through an alley in winter. This day was crushing me and I was about to be destroyed. Sadness had captured my being so much that there was no escape from it. It is as if something heavy has covered my entire being, or that I have been living in a deep and dark pit for a long time and have lost my hearing and sight.

After that, the days passed with the same concentration of blackness and misery. We have almost forgotten what laughter is. We felt very scared and anxious. The longing for freedom and being free had sprouted in our hearts after that day. Sometimes I couldn't bear so much deep pain and I felt like I was going to explode inside. But there was still hope that kept me alive. I always thought to myself that maybe it would have been better if we had died so that we would not have to endure this bad situation that happened to me and my countrymen. But I still loved life, I had kept my hope and I was clinging to anything promising. In order not to lose hope, I kept reminding myself: keep your head up, keep your spirits up, maybe better days are coming.

Remembering the past days also dims the hope in my heart. The days when my only concern in life was the university. I always thought that the purpose of my creation is to help people and hold people's hands. I was trying to make Maryam a helpful character in the future, and since I was interested in politics, I wanted to be the voice of my people and defend their rights. In order to achieve this goal and increase my capacity in this area, I participated in most of the conferences and meetings that were related to political issues. It was not easy when I was the smallest among all my elders. I can't say enough about the security problems. I became a member of political participation, somehow I had figured out my way and I was building Maryam's influential and strong personality and I had succeeded to some extent.

I don't like the sweetness of those small successes, when everything fell apart unexpectedly. With the collapse of our homeland, we could no longer live peacefully in our homeland, and for this reason, we went to a second country. Oh, how hard it was and is to become an immigrant. This is not only my story, but the story of thousands of Afghan girls and families who were forced to leave their homeland. When I entered the terminal, I felt strange and completely alienated; Worthless, homeless and far from home. We were like a boat adrift in the ocean, we had lost our way, it was suffocating and suffocating. I have never felt so miserable in the last three years. But I didn't want migration to make me weaker. I thought to myself that I should not neglect what I have and search for what I don't have. I wanted to stop monotonously leading my life and make a little change in myself, and this was not possible except by studying. That's why I made a firm decision that this situation will not destroy Maryam's spirit any more. I started again and turned to writing. Of course, it is understanding and digesting each sentence that can make a change in me, not that I remain the same as I was at the end. As a result, I was able to understand other dimensions of my life and this migration has deeply changed me and changed everything in me. When I think about before the fall and migration and after, I see how different Maryam was then compared to Hosna now. Over time, I have become a different person. It's as if Maryam is a close acquaintance of mine that we didn't have a close relationship with. Compared to that, I have become more mature, stronger, and extremely tough. Now I know what I want, I have my own point of view and opinion and principles. I realized that the Maryam of that time has nothing in common with the Maryam of today; Although this may sound ridiculous, but I consider myself a big person and I am growing bigger inside every day. Now I have a deep knowledge of myself and I feel that I am very strong against problems and I have the power to carry a heavy load in life.

I was castrated by the pain of migration and the collapse of my dreams, I accepted and cried. But I didn't let this acceptance and failures and crying destroy my future life. I grabbed my hand so I wouldn't fall. Now that I have walked this path myself and many girls have fallen on a path like mine, I know that the only way to pass is to not let the suffocating state outside of Duran wear us down. Although it is difficult, we must be careful and not let anything stop us from enjoying the sunshine and admiring ourselves in the mirror. We are our starting point. For tomorrow, when the homeland is free, we must be aware.

I have kept this sentence in my mind, I have lived it and I will never forget it: "Every woman is bound to stare at the sun until one day she finally becomes a piece of sunshine." What is the sun but knowledge that illuminates and love that warms? Every woman must learn the light or the darkness will swallow her. It is so common to live in dark caves and whales' stomachs for centuries that women think that darkness is the inevitable fate of every woman. Eyes that get used to darkness are afraid of light and run away from the sun. But don't let your eyes get used to darkness, don't let blackness be both your shirt and your luck. Try to be the sun after the sun.