Negin Amou

Weariness of life, contrary to what people imagine, is not weariness of breathing. It is weariness of days that bear no name of their own, each merely a continuation of the one before. As long as a person has something to hold onto, even if it is nothing more than an illusion, they make peace with the world. The breaking point comes when even that illusion collapses, and one realizes that the pillars holding up the roof of their soul have rotted from within.

At that moment, death is not what one longs for; rest is. A deep sleep, without dreams and without morning. Not because one has come to hate life, but because there is no strength left in one’s shoulders to carry its weight.

It is strange how others always seem to have a ready-made prescription in their pockets. They say, “Look, there are people who suffer more than you do.” As though suffering could be weighed on a scale. Is pain a competition? Does one wound heal at the sight of a deeper one? Every person has their own prison, and its walls can only be seen from within.

The hardest part is not the burden itself, but having nowhere left to carry it. Suffering, when there is a destination in the distance, is a road. When that destination disappears, the road becomes an endless torment. Each step exists only to justify the next, with no horizon in sight.

On this endless and quite meaningless road, worst thing one can do is to allow themselves to become a mere spectator of their own existence. A person can spend years working, sleeping, and waking, moving through the days without ever truly entering them.

That is how years disappear. One ordinary day at a time. We wait for something to change, for some distant moment to make the journey worthwhile, while the present slips quietly past us.

While writing this I was reminded of the movie Another Round (2020) which I watched few years ago. Mads Mikkelsen has always been one of my favourite actors, and his portrayal of Martin made the film all the more memorable to me. What stayed with me most was not the drinking. It was the warning beneath it. A person can become so occupied with getting through life that they forget to take part in it. Martin had not stopped breathing. He had simply stopped being present in his own days. By the end, nothing about his life had magically become easier. Pain was there so was the struggle . But when the music started playing again,this time, he chose to dance.

In my destinationless journey, what is left is doing things worth remembering. Laughing when there is little reason to. Dancing while the music is still playing, knowing perfectly well that it will eventually stop.

Surviving is an act of postponing death.

Living despite all the pain, makes sure death doesn’t get everything. Laugh in the wind and let it be carried to the ears that never expected to hear it again.

The clock is going to keep ticking either way. I figured I might as well give it something worth counting.

Seven years.

There are murderers who serve less time.

My prison didn’t have bars. It had application numbers, expiry dates, automated emails, and government webpages written in that peculiar bureaucratic dialect where nothing is ever wrong. Everything is simply in progress.

Seven years in progress.

You learn strange habits when your future belongs to strangers.

You memorize expiry dates. Check portals at three in the morning. An email notification stops your heart before you’ve even unlocked your phone.

Eventually you understand the ugliest part.

The machine doesn’t hate you.

It doesn’t have to.

Indifference works just as well.

Somewhere, my entire existence was sitting in a queue. Seven years of education, work, friendships, and everything I’d built reduced to PDFs under a case number.

And behind me was Iran.

The country where I was born. The country you’re supposed to call home even when the word starts sounding like a threat.

Then January came.

People poured into the streets carrying the dangerous belief that their lives belonged to them.

The answer came in blood.

Faces became photographs. Names became numbers. Families waited outside prisons. And somewhere, an executioner’s rope waited more efficiently than any immigration system ever had.

I watched it all from Canada.

“Safe.”

I hated that word.

Safety shouldn’t come with an expiry date.

Because buried underneath every delayed application was the same quiet possibility:

Go back.

For someone else, maybe that means packing boxes.

For me, it could mean an interrogation room. A prison cell. A courtroom. An execution.

And still the portal said:

In progress.

History moved faster than my application.

People could be arrested faster. Sentenced faster. Killed faster.

I had done everything immigrants are told to do. Study. Work. Contribute. Follow the rules. Build a life.

Become everything except certain that I would be allowed to keep it.

Seven years ago, I thought immigration was about finding a new home.

I understand it differently now.

Sometimes immigration is standing outside a locked door while the house behind you burns.

You knock.

You wait.

The smoke gets thicker.

You can hear people screaming behind you.

You knock again.

And from the other side of the door comes the calmest voice imaginable:

Your application is in progress.

So you stand there.

The house keeps burning.

The door stays closed.

Seven years.

Still knocking.

I am writing this note to honor the people of Iran who lost their lives fighting for a better future.

I was born in Esfahan/Iran and spent the first sixteen years of my life in Iran. I loved my beautiful city and made countless memories there. Even as I write this, I still do not feel truly at home anywhere else. My home will always be the place where I grew up.

Our homeland, however, is occupied by a barbaric regime that has killed thousands of people to remain in power. The lives of Iranians are now divided into two halves: before and after the January protests. The horrors we witnessed are unimaginable.

Meanwhile, vultures both inside and outside Iran continue to deepen our wounds; some by ridiculing those who were killed, and others by executing protesters arrested in January, either publicly or in silence, without a fair trial. The nightmare that people inside Iran are living through, particularly those who have lost their loved ones, is beyond comprehension.

In this personal space I have created for myself, I want to honor these brave souls and leave behind my own small testament: that as long as I am alive, I will remember their sacrifice and never take it for granted.

Sooner or later, the Islamic regime occupying Iran will collapse. One day, it will drown in the suffering it has caused and the blood it has spilled.

In the end, it always comes back to us: my mom, my dad, my brother, my two cats, and me against the whole world.

People come and go. Places stop feeling like home. Promises are made and broken, and everything you once thought was permanent can disappear overnight. People can enter your life with beautiful words and convincing promises, make you believe they are here to stay, and still betray you when you least expect it. Sometimes, the people you trust the most are the ones who leave the deepest wounds. Strangers become friends, friends become strangers, and people you once treated like family eventually show you that they never were.

But when everything falls apart, you learn who remains.

For me, it has always been my family. My mom, my dad, my brother, and my two cats. Through distance, change, disappointment, loss, and every difficult chapter of my life, they are still there. My cats do not know how cruel the world can be. They do not know what I have lost, what I have left behind, or how many times I have had to start over. They simply know that wherever I am is where they belong.

The older I get, the less I care about how many people stand around me. I care about who is still standing there when life gets ugly. Some people will betray your trust. Some will stab you in the back. Some will leave you wondering whether anything they ever said was real. Eventually, you stop counting the people who promised to stay and start appreciating the ones who actually did.

In the end, family stays.

If the whole world turns unfamiliar, I will still have my little family, carrying our own piece of home with us wherever life takes us.

And if one day it really is just us against the whole world, then so be it.

Liars are among the most cunning monsters we encounter in life. I am writing this after days and days of reflection, as a reminder to genuine souls who may need to hear it: stay away from such people.

Looking back, I realize that so many of my hardships, heartbreaks, and failures stemmed from people who lied and manipulated. Friends, coworkers, and partners who lied to my face, took advantage of me, and ultimately left me to deal with the wreckage they caused.

They may even be living comfortable lives now, convincing themselves that they are good people. These monsters are cunning enough to deceive even themselves. So effectively in fact that they can somehow look in the mirror without an ounce of remorse or shame.

Once they begin taking your kindness for granted, they will make you feel foolish for ever having a human heart. They will leave you cold, guarded, and unable to trust. But you must remember that this is not your fault. You are not the problem. The problem lies with the liars, and their inability to see the world through a lens of empathy and honesty.

So here is my reminder to you, the stranger on the internet reading this: beware of liars. They will enter your life disguised as angels and leave you with scars that you may carry for the rest of your life. Keep your faith in the good people in this world, but never let your guard down around those who are not. One day, their lies and the suffering they have caused will catch up with them, and they will be left to face the consequences of their actions. Live your life with integrity, be grateful for your soft heart, and never let the liars and manipulators in your life define who you are.

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