I did not think that Kabul would fall as soon as it did. In the city, we were speculating that it might be five or six months out, but then the fall happened very quickly.

The night Mazar fell I was in a taxi, and about to check the news, when the driver said, “Mazar fell!” I couldn’t believe it. Herat and Kandahar had already fallen, now with the fall of Mazar, the northern front, it was the end of the matter. The fall of Mazar meant that everything was over.

I was awake and depressed until four in the morning. I was worried and stressed. At six o’clock, when I wanted to go to the office, I checked Facebook and saw posts that Kabul was under siege. Following all the news updates, I got scared. I could not go to the office.

My mind was busy thinking about the future. Will I be able to work after this or not? What will happen with the arrival of the Taliban? Will women be allowed to work at all? Nothing was known. At that moment, I was looking for a miracle. I was looking for someone who would give me good news. It was like a nightmare.

Previously I never could’ve imagined that Kabul would fall. But the internet was full of rumors. Someone said, “They are coming from Maidan Wardak Province.” And another said, “they arrived in Itefaq town and there is a fight going on” In these hours, I was remembering all the difficulties I have had experienced living in Kabul.

I was born in Iran. My parents were immigrants and I remember the hardships we faced there. When we moved back to Afghanistan from Iran, we arrived feeling that this was our own country. This was our homeland, and although we had to start again from scratch, we would stay here anyway. I was thinking that I, like the thirty-five or thirty-six million other people in Afghanistan, started life from scratch. We studied and worked hard hoping to have a better future. And our parents went through such hardships to support us. I was thinking about the hardships we all went through. We hoped for a better future.

The day of the fall, I was home alone and afraid. I heard that the government had fallen. It was a bad day, and I was thinking about the thirty-six million people who had worked so hard over the past twenty years. Their parents worked in people’s homes, weaving carpets so that their children could study and have a better future than themselves. On that day the spirit of the people suddenly broke. And one thing became obvious: no one wanted to remain in the country anymore. Especially those whose way of thinking was different from the Taliban’s way of thinking.

During the emergency evacuation, a series of lists were published that said some people could leave the country, and I was one of those people. I think those of us who qualified suddenly felt less pressure, because everyone longed to get out of the country. In the nights that I waited to get a call to go, many people were messaging me on Facebook. Everyone was asking, “Do you know someone or an organization that can take us out?” Most of them were my girlfriends and I couldn’t do anything. Everyone was looking for the same email. I was disappointed that I could not do anything.

On the other hand, I was wondering: If this country expels two hundred thousand people, what will happen to the other thirty-five million people? My heart was burning for the girls who worked for years for basic human rights. There is now a regime that does not accept women as human beings. My heart was burning, and I couldn’t do anything. This was a feeling we all shared during the days of the emergency evacuation.

And it turned out we couldn’t get out during the initial emergency evacuation. Two days after the end of the evacuation window, I decided to go to a demonstration. I had never seen Taliban members up close. I didn’t know anything about the Taliban, except that they were criminals, terrorists.

The day I went to protest was the first time I truly realized I could no longer live in Afghanistan. At the demonstration, I was holding a paper in my hand that said “Don’t take our identity away from us! A woman is also a human being and has the right to live.” There were about fourteen or fifteen of us girls. The Taliban emerged from District Three. Several people surrounded us and cursed us. They were telling us: “Do you want freedom? Do you want democracy?

They tried to take Nemat and Taghi — the two reporters of our group — with them, but we would not let them go. We pulled the journalists so that they could not split us apart. A soldier pointed his AK-47 at me. My heart was beating. He raised his whip towards us twice, so we left.

We wanted to talk with them. “Why are you arresting journalists who only came to cover the news?” The Taliban did not even understand this simple word and cursed. I thought back to my experience participating in other demonstrations, in the Enlightenment Movement, the Tabassum Movement, and the demonstrations after the fall of Malistan and Jaghori. I was comparing past demonstrations with this one. I was thinking about what we have lost as human beings, as citizens of a country.

I came home and said, “We can’t live here anymore. They don’t understand us here anymore.” For the crime of being women and defending our basic rights, we are beaten and whipped. Even when we wanted to talk to the officials who were there to release the journalists, if we hadn’t moved away, they would’ve driven over us.

But even in the two months I lived under Taliban rule in Kabul, my pride did not allow me to change my clothes. Even on the day when we left Kabul, I wore my usual clothes. An intelligence officer stopped us and asked: “What is the size of the clothes you are wearing? Does a Muslim woman wear this kind of clothes?” The pride that I had accumulated in the last twenty years prevented me from blushing.

I was sad and depressed waiting for the flight, which was delayed for four hours. I felt very empty. I felt that I was leaving my whole life in Kabul and could not bring anything with me. I thought that my whole identity, my whole existence would be left in my country. I was sad. My family and all the things that shaped my life over my twenty years in my homeland would remain in Kabul — and I could not bring any of it with me.

We arrived in Qatar and the first feeling I experienced was a sense of alienation. I was a stranger to the people. I didn’t know anyone’s language, we didn’t have a common culture, we didn’t have anything in common. I didn’t feel like I belonged. I did not feel a sense of ownership. Even now in America, I don’t feel ownership of anything in my life. I am in a crisis — like all those who have immigrated — an identity crisis. Who am I? What should I do in America?

In Kabul, however false or real, we were fighting for the same things. We fought for the right to exist as women. Because I was a millennial, I fought in the university. My professors were from other tribes and their behavior toward Hazara people was very different from their treatment of others. I was fighting at work. I fought everywhere. I had a purpose for life. It was my people. My life was formed in Afghanistan, and it shaped my life path. I don’t feel that in America.