The Fish That Swam Away

The Fish That Swam Away

I was born in Rovies, a Greek coastal village drenched in olive groves, dense forests, and salty breezes, where cicadas sang all summer long. Life there was simple, practical, and predictable. But beneath this beauty, life for girls like me was confined to domestic duties and obedience within close-knit families. Everyone knew everyone--and their business-- often interfering as if it were their own. Gossip was abundant. Old widows sat on their porches, criticizing everyone that passed by. Tradition shaped my life. As a girl, I was expected to be quiet, obedient, and pleased with the decisions my family made for me.

In my family, privacy was a foreign word. I was shy, quiet, and submissive--exactly the kind of ideal girl every family wanted. I was supposed to sit in my corner, do my embroidery, and zip it. I had no voice. No opinion. I was not allowed to question my father's authority. One firm word, one angry look from him, and I knew his rule was final.

Once, a matchmaker tried to marry me to the village priest. She thought I would make the perfect presvytera, the priest’s wife, modest and well-behaved. That’s why girls in villages get married young, including all my best friends. Marriage offered them a way out of their father’s house. But the truth was that they moved from their father’s control to that of their husband.

I felt invisible and trapped. I was living the life that was molded for me and not my own. I drifted into sadness and depression. I didn’t want to live confined in the four walls of a house. I was curious about the world, creative, and hungry to learn more.

I used to tell my mother, “One day I will leave. I’ll go to America.” My father’s sister lived there, and that connection became my lifeline. My mother would nod and say, “I wish that you go.” My parents wanted a life for me better than their own.

***

I was determined. I waited—very patiently.

It took me three whole years to get a tourist visa. Every summer, I traveled to the American Embassy in Athens, rehearsing my answers nervously. And every summer, the ambassador declined my application. He was convinced I would marry an American and stay. He even asked me if I had a fiancé waiting for me in America. I was young and single, exactly the kind of applicant he feared wouldn’t return. But the third time, I was lucky.

With a tourist visa and a passport in my hand, I left Rovies and flew to the United States in August 1990. I was twenty years old and had $200 in my pocket. My aunt’s family helped me transition to the new culture and became a foreign student at Valdosta State University in Georgia. I still remember stepping onto campus for the first time. In my eyes, it was so massive, as big as my entire village. I was stunned. For two decades, my whole world could fit inside this one university. I was thrilled and scared all at once.

At first, I felt overwhelmed. My English was decent, but not fluent. I stumbled over words, misunderstood the southern dialect, and often nodded politely without knowing what was said. My dictionary became my best friend. I made friends from other countries and small towns across the U.S. We shared meals and apartments, went shopping and to the movies, studied together, and laughed over things that would have made no sense back in Rovies. Slowly, I learned to adapt to American culture: how to speak up in class, how to take responsibility, how to work for a living. With each passing day, I began to feel at home in a place that had once been completely foreign.

Here, I was free to explore my surroundings and friendships without constant scrutiny. In my village, my parents questioned every outing--where I was going, who I was with, when I’d return. They were concerned not just for my safety but also for our reputation. But when I was in America, they didn’t ask those questions. Not because they stopped caring, but because I was out of reach. I wasn’t there for villagers to see and gossip. And for the first time, I could breathe.

America changed me. It taught me independence and ambition. I realized that I didn’t have to live the life others had laid out for me, but I could shape my own. I embraced the freedom, the comfort, and the opportunities that this country had to offer. I began to think for myself, speak my mind, say “no,” and break away from old expectations.

***

When my undergraduate studies ended in 1995, I returned to Rovies. The day I returned, my parents welcomed me with open arms, and we had a feast: roasted lamb, fresh bread, and all the familiar dishes of home. I walked through the village and noticed many changes, like new hotels and houses built along the coastline. When I met with people I had grown up with, I realized I couldn’t remember some of their names. My old high school classmates had grown up, married, and had children. I still remembered them as teenagers. I was used to speaking English, and now I felt clumsy in my native tongue.

I didn’t know how I would live in Greece again. I had returned with a mind full of ideas and a heart full of restlessness. But the village wanted me to shrink back into the mold I had broken. My father had hoped I would stay in America and eventually marry there. I could sense his disappointment. He let me go to America to live a better life, and here I was, back in the village.

I really wanted to stay in America, but it wasn’t that simple. To remain legally, I needed to pursue a master’s degree, and we didn’t have the money for that. My parents had worked hard to finance my education. I graduated without debts, unlike other students, and I was proud of that. Also, I hadn’t met the right man and had no time for a relationship while studying. I quickly realized that Americans didn’t marry young the way we did back home. No one was going to take on a burden like me just so I could get a Green Card. Such an arrangement would have been indecent and dishonest of me anyway.

Everyone gave me advice: to teach English as a foreign language or to open a sewing business, since I was a seamstress. But I didn’t know what I wanted or what I could do with my degree in English, other than teaching. I felt lost and deeply out of place.

One afternoon, as I sat with my aunt on the porch, she looked at me with a mix of frustration and sadness and said, “America destroyed you.” Her words pierced my heart like a knife. But I understood what she meant: I had become too independent, too outspoken, too unwilling to conform to the village’s standards. I was no longer the shy, quiet girl who sat in her corner stitching.

I felt like a fish out of water. I gasped for air in conversations that felt foreign, even though they were in my native tongue. I drifted between expectations: teach, sew, settle down. I twisted inside myself, searching for a current to swim in. But the water was gone. The freedom I had tasted in America had evaporated. My mind was still in America, but my body was back in Greece.

I tried to make it work. I moved to Athens and looked for retail jobs, but employers kept telling me I should be teaching English. Eventually, I found work sewing church vestments for a small company. The job was steady, and the city offered more distractions than the village, but I still felt adrift. I didn’t like Athens. My heart wasn’t in it.

Then came Paris. I found work as a live-in babysitter for a Greek French family with two boys. I spoke Greek with the mother and children, English with the father. My French was poor, but I managed to hold simple conversations. Paris was beautiful, but I was always on the outside looking in. For six months, I walked the boulevards alone, sat in cafés, read at the public library, crossed the golden bridges, and wondered where I belonged.

London followed. For four years, I worked in retail at House of Fraser. London was cold, but I liked the city, its attractions, and its anonymity. My income was modest, but I made friends and began to feel like myself again. I was no longer the girl from Rovies. I was a woman who had lived in four countries, spoke three languages, and survived four transformations.

And then, something unexpected happened. An old friend from my student days at VSU reached out. We had kept in touch over the years, and now he was coming to visit me in London. Seeing him again felt like retracing a part of myself I had left behind in Georgia. For two weeks, we visited the city’s main attractions, dined out, talked and laughed. We rekindled our friendship and something new began to grow between us. One year after his visit, I returned to Valdosta, and we married at a civil wedding. Now, I was finally someone’s wife, a woman ready to plant roots.

I had come full circle. Looking back, I realized that my journey was about identity and belonging. Each place I lived in gave me something: Athens gave me strength, Paris gave me compassion, London gave me independence, and Valdosta gave me a home. Greece will always be my birthplace. America gave me wings.

I still visit Rovies. The olive groves still stand, the cicadas still sing, and the gossip still flows. But I no longer shrink beneath it. I walk the same streets with pride and purpose. I am no longer the fish who swam in swallow water. I am the fish who swims in the open ocean. I am my own woman-- free to choose, free to speak, free to live. And I know now that home isn’t just where you’re from, it’s where you feel free.

And for me, that place is here.