In the past weeks, my decision to leave the company became more serious and actionable, but what I hadn't anticipated was the stagnation and economic situation caused by COVID-19. It wiped out all alternatives, leaving me stuck in Istanbul with the stay-at-home restrictions.

The days passed one after another, and I was unable to make any decisions until, on a friend's suggestion, I handed over my apartment and went to live with them temporarily. We both escaped complete isolation and also saved a bit on expenses.

During my time at my friend's place, nothing changed regarding the situation, and we were still in full quarantine, so strict that leaving the house even for basic necessities was impossible. As the situation worsened and the stupid daily discrimination increased, I decided to return to Tabriz until things improved a bit, avoiding additional risks. My friend also decided to come back with me so we wouldn’t be alone on this rather unpleasant trip.

This plan fell apart when one of the airlines canceled our flight on Tuesday, giving us a big blow. Other attempts to secure a non-canceled flight eventually led us to a Tehran flight, and after checking, we were confident this one wouldn’t be canceled, and luckily, it wasn’t. Though one passenger’s ridiculous delay made us wait nearly two hours on the plane and caused us to miss the second flight to Tabriz, at least we finally reached our homeland.

Even though we tried our best to follow health protocols and no one appeared suspicious during the trip, I decided not to leave my room for at least two weeks to minimize any risk to my family.

For now, I’ll continue this self-quarantine until we see when these pseudo-scientists give up on their surface longevity experiments and finally show some actual heroic effort to get us out of this situation.