It is my last day in Toronto, and I am sitting in this café that I have been coming to this past week to study. It is also the first day of the new year, 2025. I can't bring myself to study yet. Right now, in front of me, there is this beautiful view of the outside - ordinary stores, a Chinese takeout, a psychic clinic, a UPS store. These are things I can barely see in the modernized academic area where I live in my hometown, Tucson. It is ironic how I just called Tucson my hometown since my real hometown, Esfahan, has been "NA" - not applicable - in my mind. Really, I would not go back there.

Things, as hard as they could be here, could never be as hard as how they are back in Esfahan. You know, I should look back at it with fondness, with love - the place I grew up in - but the first thing that comes to my mind, which I feel in my body, is terror and fear. Even the thought of just going there for a visit doesn't do any good to my body. This is the place I thought about maybe having one of my wedding ceremonies. One in the US, and one in Esfahan. But?

I was talking about this great view in front of me. It is the first day of the year. Many people are starting their many challenges to work out every day, read books every day, do this, do that. I don't want to write a long list and set myself up for failure. Thoroughly, with the woman's menstruation cycle, I can't do a single thing even for one straight month, let alone a year. The fact that I accept this about myself and recognize it is a huge step. When I was in high school, I couldn't accept the fact that I needed to sleep. I wanted to cut my brain open and take out the suprachiasmatic nucleus inside my hypothalamus so I could be superhuman and never sleep. I do honor now that my emotions fluctuate throughout the month, and I do honor the fact that I need to sleep. I have come a long way from my survival mode in Iran.

I am still sitting in front of this view. There has been this old couple that has been coming to the café at the same time every day to read books. They have one friend who joins them, who doesn't read books and often talks with the old man- I presume the husband. The old lady, though, doesn't care or mind the noise at all. She is extremely focused on the book in front of her eyes with her big glasses and gracefully turns the pages. No spare attention to the conversation that her husband and the friend are having.

This really reminds me of myself. When there was going to be war in Iran in 2020, and everyone was talking about it. When Trump ordered the death of one of Iran's most important nuclear leaders. I remember I was reading the most at that time. I didn't want to exist. I was just existing in The Hunger Games books. I packed a suitcase just in case we had to escape. I barely put any clothes in it. The rest was just packs of heavy things - hardcover books.

An old man in my view walks his cute dogs on the sidewalk. Once again, the view is beautiful but so ordinary, and I love it.

I am saying all of this because this is the first day of the year, and you shouldn't plan your whole year ahead. Instead, think, pause for a moment. Take it in. Look around and see where you were a year ago, the year before, years ago. And not just see - feel where you are right now. Do not plan what you want to do in 2025; soon, it is going to be 2026. Think about how you are going to feel and how you want to perceive the world around you.

Let your fingers leave the keyboard.

Look around.

And feel.

I guess in the new year, I want to learn how to connect with the world around me not through my phone but through my eyes,

my words.

I think that itself should be enough.