On My Own Terms
/One woman’s journey to find belonging after a heartbreaking hike
Ava Ahmadbeigi (Photo courtesy Ava Ahmadbeigi)
“The kind of belonging and acceptance I worry about is not the kind you might feel at a party where you don’t have any friends. Belonging, for me, is tinged with power. The ability for someone who claims the space to tell me not just that I don’t fit in, but that I have to get out.”
As an Iranian immigrant, Ava Ahmadbeigi has spent a lot of time thinking about “belonging” — or not belonging.
One of the places she always felt most unwelcome was the outdoors. And after a demoralizing hiking trip, she gave up on nature.
But that hiking trip kept haunting her. On this episode, Ava shares her story. It’s a story that takes us from a cramped apartment in New York City to a mountain in the Adirondacks and traces Ava’s struggle to find her place — both in her own body, and in the world outside her walls.
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