7,679 miles
First: 12 hours and 10 minutes to Istanbul, Türkiye.
Then: 3 hours and 55 minutes of a layover in Istanbul.
Three hours and 45 minutes to Shiraz, Iran.
I scanned my boarding pass and entered the tunnel — a portal that has led me “home” for the past 17 years.
Growing up with my extended family living in Iran has caused a complicated relationship with the idea of “home.” For most of my life, I’ve carried the feeling that I belong in two places, but I’ve never felt fully settled in either. I go home to the same three people every day, but part of me is constantly longing for those who are 7,679 miles away — my home away from “home.”
Every Sunday at 11 a.m., the Skype ringtone echoes through the walls of my house and we all run to sit on the couch. It’s the one hour of the week that everything is put aside to spend time with my family — but we aren’t sitting next to each other, laughing and enjoying the moment, we’re sitting across a screen.
While my best friend can drive 20 minutes and reach their family, I have to fly 20 hours to see mine. I see pictures of gatherings, celebrations and ordinary moments that I can’t be a part of. I watched my aunts get married through Skype calls, met my baby cousins through FaceTime and said goodbye to my great-grandmother through PNG files. I’ve lived a life trying to feel the warmth of my family through a screen, but not even my deepest imagination could surpass the distance between us.
Being 7,679 miles away means missing out on the little moments that give life texture and purpose — my baby cousins’ milestones, my grandparents’ life advice shared over breakfast. The people who know my roots and who I share the same traditions with aren’t a part of my day-to-day life. When I do get to visit, I get a wave of familiarity and comfort, but it’s always combined with fleeting reminders that it won’t last forever. I’m a visitor trying to catch up on a lifetime of experiences I wasn’t a part of.
However, on the other end of those 7,679 miles, there’s the home I’ve always known: where I’ve built my life, my routines and my friendships. But even here in America, something feels off. There’s a constant awareness of what’s missing. I carry my family’s traditions and culture with me, but it’s always incomplete without them by my side. Special occasions that should feel joyful — holidays, birthdays, family dinners — carry a weight to them. There’s always an empty chair, a part of my life that feels distant and unreachable.
I’ve always been in between two homes, two continents, two worlds, with no full belonging. One is filled with the family I rarely see, while the other consists of the life I’ve built. They are both mine, yet I feel like an outsider in each.
When I’m in America, I long for the connections and closeness I miss overseas. But when I’m in Iran, I realize how much I’ve built in the place I grew up — my friends, my school, my memories — and how that, too, is part of who I am.
When people ask where I’m from, it’s not just a one-word answer. I’m from America, but my heart also belongs to a place far away. It’s a constant push and pull — feeling guilty for not being “home” with my family in Iran, but feeling like I’m drifting when I’m not grounded in the life I’ve built here.
Having two homes has taught me that home isn’t a fixed concept. It’s fluid, evolving with every journey I take between these two places. Home is not just a physical place; it’s the people who fill it, the memories created and the sense of belonging that comes with both. But when half of the people who make up my home are 7,679 miles away, home becomes fragmented. That’s the hardest part: knowing that my home will always be split between two places, always incomplete, and always leaving me with the sense that something or someone is missing.
