Things Lost, Things Not Lost, and the Ones That Were Found on the Way

A teenage girl’s journey of leaving her home in Iran to move to Canada with her family is shaped around a secret box of memories that needs to accompany the main character to her new home in Canada. The story focuses on themes of belonging, “home”, identity; and experiences of Iranian teenage women told through a simple tale of teenagehood in Iran. The teenage girl experiences an identity crisis that starts with the migration journey itself and as the family arrives in the Canadian airport for the very first time, new insights into their immigrant realities unfold. The story is called Things Lost, Things Not Lost, And the Ones That Were Found on The Way. It is a simple story of a family’s journey to Canada, and it begins when the family is leaving Tehran, ending when they arrive at Toronto’s Pearson International airport. Told in the voice of the family’s teenage daughter, it is a mix of imagination and experiences I personally have lived through. What I have tried to capture in this playful snapshot of a family’s journey are the feelings and emotions they experience before immigrating to a new country. These feelings of letting go are intertwined with meaningful pieces of identity and the journey is full of contradictions that mimic the paradoxes and the challenges immigrant families experience as they try to adapt to their new life, including changes in family dynamics and gender relations.