When I was 10 years old, my parents made the life changing decision of moving to America. Like most people from where I come from, my parents saw America as a new beginning, the land of the free and the land of opportunity. My brother and I, on the other hand, were less than excited to be leaving behind everything we had known and loved since birth for a far away country that we had only known from the news. On the plane and all through the immigration process, my mother didn’t wear her hijab and told me and my brother to not say anything in Arabic. That should have been the first red flag, but I was too naive and too excited to be on an airplane to notice.
To say that adjusting to life in America was difficult would be an understatement. I started school in the midst of fourth grade at School 27, where everything was well and happy. A couple months later, we moved to a part of town and I started attending School #5. At school, everyone already had their own little cliques and as most kids can be, they were not very welcoming. I guess I can understand why they wouldn’t want to be friends
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I love because I wasn’t loved for a long time. I love because I learned to love myself and I want to spread that. Despite everything, I have found a unique group of friends whom I love. The world, now more than ever, needs love. Through my mere 15 years of living, I have found that smallest bit of love and tiniest bit of kindness can go a long way. You never know that maybe if you had just smiled at the girl walking passed you on the street, that maybe you could have saved her life. Maybe if one person had been kind to me or told me they loved me or that I mattered, I would have never contemplated ending my life. But I don’t blame anyone because all of the things I went through made me who I am today. And although it’s corny and sappy, I strongly believe that if everyone loved a little more, this world would be a better