After five months since returning to Iran, and all the countless events that have happened during this time, I feel somewhat stable. I ended a tense relationship with the help of my mom and a dear friend, and I’ve regretted hundreds of times how such a long period of my life was influenced by that situation. Although, as someone said, I still reached freedom with a very reasonable (both material and non-material) cost.

For over four months now, I’ve been working remotely with a really great company. This fifth full-time experience in Turkey is, on the surface and deeper down, much better than my previous ones. This time, I’ve also made good progress on the work visa process. If no serious issues arise, this expensive paper will probably be attached to my passport soon.

A while ago, I solved dozens of small and large issues with my blog and added a new section called “Basement.” The Basement is a place for publishing a personal archive of newspapers, magazines, or things I find from the “past” on the internet. You can see the first post in this category at the end of this post. I also condensed 200 draft posts into 45 items. Many that were no longer relevant were deleted, and some were combined to increase their content and publication chances.

Last month, I had appendicitis after my niece jumped on my stomach. After being denied admission at five public hospitals, I finally went to a private hospital and paid 4.5 million Toman for one and a half nights of stay and 2.5 million Toman for a 40-minute surgery. I was housebound for a month. A dear friend from my military days stayed with me for a night so my dad could rest for a few hours. Although the hospital didn’t accept COVID-19 patients, considering the potential risk, this was a huge help, and I’m deeply indebted. By following the post-surgery restrictions, I managed to lose nearly ten kilograms. The physical and mental impact has been very noticeable, and I’m happy about it.

The next issue was my wisdom tooth putting pressure on the root of another tooth, which caused a mix-up between my mouth and the restroom. A one-hour surgery on that tooth cost one million Toman, root canal and restoration on the other tooth another million, and extracting the other one 300 thousand Toman. The continuous jaw pain lasted two weeks and disrupted my life. To properly take care of the rest of my teeth, I’ll need to set aside part of my salary for a few months.

These days, my life is basically nine-hour remote work (which my colleagues claim is dozens of times harder than on-site work) and evening walks accompanied by audiobooks and storytelling podcasts. In the near future, there’s little hope for the improvement of the COVID situation, and the initial excitement of staying home and catching up on tasks has faded. The only positive is being with family, which I was deprived of for more than two-plus-two years. All of this happens in the last autumn of the 14th century.