Carton To Cocoon

So here’s the story, I was 18 when I stared a rebellion against fate! I said it’s my life I want to do what I want with it. I want to do it my way… even if I lose, at least is was my choice and I could get along with that.

I was being trained to be an engineer, and it’s not really easy to look for something else when you’re surrounded by PHD ENGINEERS. I wasn’t even aware of that. Until one lazy afternoon in spring’s holiday my attention was caught up by one our relatives talking about her sister and how she’s given this entrance exam THREE times (which means THREE YEARS), just to get accepted at the major she wanted for always and that was Archaeology.

For those who don’t know how the education system in Iran works, I’ve to say in high school we’ve 5 majors, Math and Physics, Biology, Humanities, Art and the last one is about handy many jobs and stuff. So if you wish to be doctor you study biology  in high school and get a biology diploma, spend a year in pre-university classes, then give an entrance exam in biology field and based upon your score you get to choose what you wanna study in UNIVERSITY for bachelor. I was two months away from my final exams, For Math and Physics Diploma … and while she was talking I was watching how my life would be over the years in my head and felt like something was chocking me! Like a huge burden on my neck, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even run out for air, I was immobilised and my veins were pulsing with total fear not blood. Me? An Engineer? With maps and tools for measuring and numbers and great machines and all I would care about would be physics? Like the actual surface of a thing that can be seen and not caring whether there’s more than that or not? Even if that counted in life I’d still be stepping on the exact same foot prince that my father, Aunts and Uncle and my friend’s parents and all others -as far as I knew around me- have left behind. Would I wanted to be a repeat? Not knowing what else is there to life? The movie ended with me Trapped in a box and I literally could smell the septic of the carton. The exact moment I saw myself being destroyed, there came a breeze of a memory I had when I was a little girl … watching Beauty & The Beast, Where Bell is asked to marry Gaston and he pictures an image of their life together and bell is likely to throw up, She says NO and sings a song and as I remembered the song I shouted:

                        

      “I WANT MUCH MORE THAN THIS PROVINCIAL LIFE”

Like a spell, a magic spell, one like Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo, chains were broken, I wanted a life with books and stories and poetry where fairy tales would still matter and not just to read and know beside my job in life, I wanted that to be my job and my life and I had that spirit inside me, I just have had forgotten it for so so long and It reached out for me to save me and I found oxygen again. That carton box turned into a cocoon so it would break free and let me out into the world as something new, as something I found to be, more beautiful … A BUTTERFLY…!

And that's how I got my bachelor in History and MA's in old Persian literature and Culture.