One Year In: Stronger, Wiser, and Enough

From my very first walk on the Walnut Street Bridge (also known as the Walking Bridge) on October 10, 2024.

It has been one year since I moved to Chattanooga. I still sometimes find myself wondering if it was really worth it. And since I’ve already made the move, that question turns into a wish: “I hope it’s worth it.” I had a decent job in Turkey—almost a full professor, a promising young woman, hardworking and successful. I had an apartment filled with the highest quality furniture and appliances, a decent amount of money in my bank account, and friends and family nearby. I wasn’t even going to the gym, but I had been working with not just one but two personal trainers during my last year before moving to Chattanooga. So, when someone looks at the picture, it almost seems crazy to leave a life like that behind and move to a country 6,000 miles away.

I think there are two main reasons behind this decision. 1) My previous experience in the United States, which I wish I had experienced much earlier so that I wouldn’t have moved here at the age of forty. 2) My endless unhappiness in my previous institution in Turkey.

Now, let me walk you through these two reasons in a bit more detail.

When I first visited the United States between 2021–2022, I think I was amazed by the quiet (thanks, Rolla, for being in the middle of everywhere), the sense of personal space, and the kindness of strangers. 

It wasn’t just in Rolla that I felt this—I experienced it everywhere I went in the United States. Strangers I’d never see again smiled at me, said hello, and wished me a good day. It felt so small and simple, yet it changed the energy of my daily life. In California, a woman even told me I looked like a model and encouraged me to apply to be in Amazon ads. And in Miami, when I asked someone if an area was safe to walk in, he said it was totally safe but that I might still get some looks because I was very pretty. (Okay, enough bragging, but you get the point—a stranger can pass by and completely lift your mood. A-MAZ-ING.) 

I was also amazed by the size of the markets—seeing massive aisles and ten versions of the same item. That level of convenience was shocking. (Do I buy three flavors of Oreo while grocery shopping? No. Do I even eat Oreos at all? No. But just knowing that I could—that there are shelves full of them—feels good.)

Last but not least, the diversity—how easy it is to find cuisine from every corner of the world, and how you can meet and become friends or colleagues with someone from a place you can’t even pinpoint on a map. It’s not only mind-opening but also humbling, making you realize that you are not the center of the world but just another person sharing the globe with everyone else.

Let’s continue with reason number 2—my endless unhappiness in my previous institution. I started working there in December 2009, and from the very beginning it was obvious that it wasn’t going to be easy. On my first day, one of the people in command at that time invited me to his office and said, “Look, this job has its requirements. Just like on your wedding night you can’t tell your husband, ‘I don’t want to sleep with you,’ you also can’t say ‘I won’t do this, I won’t do that’ while doing this job. You’ll do everything that’s told to you.” (I wish he had said this to me now, with the backbone I’ve built, so I could just get up and leave without a second thought.)

And I did everything I was told to do. When I was a research/teaching assistant, I finished my master’s and PhD while preparing the department’s class schedules and exam schedules, giving a ton of recitation classes, grading papers, publishing articles, and attending conferences (saving money to do so because of the lack of financial support)—everything you can imagine. I even helped the department admin whenever they needed it (I say “they” because during that long period I worked with more than one admin). Since I had to coordinate the class and exam schedules, I was in every outside lecturer’s phone contacts—those who came from other departments to teach in ours. One of the English class lecturers even nicknamed me the “key person” of the department. (I liked her; I hope she’s doing well. She was very nice and one of the easiest people to work with.) But still, I wasn’t good enough. On the smallest occasions, I was punished out of the blue in front of other people.

I remember once asking the department chair, “I am doing everything, but I’m still getting punished and humiliated in front of others. I want to understand why, because I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong. If I keep doing the same things and still get punished, I’d like to fix it if I’m making a mistake.”

What he told me now makes me smile, because it showed just how pathetic and small-minded a person in his position could be to answer like this: “Because every other person in this department is afraid of me, but you are not.” And I remember replying, “Why would I be afraid? I have nothing to be afraid of.” (A small note here: I had to use that exact same sentence—“Why would I be afraid? I have nothing to be afraid of.”—very recently in a completely different situation. But since I’m writing now about something that happened 15–16 years ago, I’ll probably write about this recent one 15–16 years from now.)

Things like that kept piling up as I climbed the so-called success ladder. I was promoted to assistant professor, then associate professor, got tenure, and was very good at teaching and mentoring. But no matter what I achieved, my success would never be enough because I didn’t belong to the right group. The mood at work was hard to bear—politics mattered more than skill, and fear silenced so many people. 

So, I made the move. I applied to UTC, accepted the offer, did everything necessary to work here, and kept my silence during the whole process. Now I hear people talking about my “crazy” move, saying, “She went without telling anyone.” What did they expect me to do? Was I supposed to make a big announcement in such a “supportive” environment? I informed the necessary people at the right time, and that was it. I got on the plane and—voilà—arrived in Chattanooga. Good luck to you with your own comfort zones; I haven’t missed you at all. I accept your Instagram friend requests just to be polite, but I mute your stories and posts because I’ve moved on—physically and mentally—by investing in myself and keeping my head down, doing my job. And I am so proud of myself and thank God for giving me the chance to leave everything behind.

On September 1, I officially started as a UTC employee. Am I the happiest person ever? No. But I’m happier than I was before, and that’s enough. What is “happiest,” anyway? I do my job, I speak my mind when something isn’t right, and that’s enough. For now, that’s enough. And if someday it doesn’t feel like enough, I know I’ll have the courage to write another story. 

September 2025, Chattanooga.

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