I really admire your courage to write.

What gives this real force is the split you hold all the way through: “I wake up in Holland. / I breathe in Iran.” That says more than a long explanation could. You make exile feel physical, not abstract. “My body is in one country and my nervous system is in another” and “safe enough to survive and not safe enough to rest” are hard, clean truths.

And the writing gets even stronger when it moves from pain into standards. The part about capacity, about people who can “sit in the fire and remain present,” and about refusing to “reduce the size of my reality so they can remain comfortable in it,” gives the piece backbone. It doesn’t just describe suffering. It shows what suffering teaches about friendship, loyalty, and moral seriousness. Sharp, intimate, and very hard to shrug off.