I left Iran at age 12 and never went back because it never felt safe. At 48, I can finally picture returning home.

• Noshene Ranjbar left Iran at age 12 and moved to the US to live with her father in Virginia.
• Since the death of Iran's supreme leader, she envisions going back to help the country rebuild.
• She said many diaspora Iranians like her may say goodbye to loved ones and return home.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Noshene Ranjbar, 48, who lives in Arizona. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I was born in Tehran on March 24, 1977, two years before the Islamic Revolution.

At age 12 in 1989, after living through the Iran-Iraq war, I left Iran to join my dad in Richmond, Virginia.

Two or three weeks ago, I would've thought that Iran might be free by the time I was 90, and I could die there. I had this vision of me walking through the airport with a cane.

There are really no words I have to describe what has happened in Iran over the past few days. I feel a mixture of excitement, disbelief, concern, fear, and hope. People in Iran that I've spoken to since the death of Khamenei are beyond excited.

Now, at age 48, I can see myself making a trip back to Iran within the next year, and potentially living there permanently within the next five. I could spend the rest of my life there, together with millions of others, and rebuild an entire nation.

In America, I co-founded a non-profit to help people with trauma

My parents got divorced when I was young, and I grew up with my mum in Iran. I have a lot of memories of running into bomb shelters during the Iran-Iraq war, and escaping Iran for Turkey for a week or two at a time to get away from the bombs.

I knew my dad wanted to bring me to the US for a life of opportunity, but I was nervous about staying with him, since I didn't know him very well. I also didn't know much English when I got to America, so I started learning English as a second language and joined seventh grade.

I continued my education all the way to medical school, but when I was 25, I had a breakdown. I had extreme anxiety and depression, and I tried to take my own life. I didn't realize how what I'd faced as a little girl impacted my nervous system and health.

It led me on a healing journey that took me into the field of psychiatry and trauma relief, and to become an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson. In 2025, I co-founded a nonprofit on the side, called EARTH, which aims to provide trauma relief to indigenous and tribal people in the US, as well as Farsi-speaking people from Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. These are things I wouldn't have been able to do in Iran.

For the first time, I can see myself going back to live in Iran

Living in the US, I missed Iran. I have so many relatives and friends there. But it never felt safe to go back. As a child in Iran, I remember someone berating my mum for allowing me to wear nail polish. I knew people who'd been in prison, and I'd lived through a war.

On top of that, when I was 19, I converted from Islam to the Baháʼí faith, whose followers are heavily persecuted in Iran.

I want to offer my skills to help rebuild my home country

Nothing in the world could give me more meaning and purpose in life than giving back in the land that birthed me. It would be like honoring what my mom, grandparents, and the many people who died in the process of trying to speak up couldn't do.

Everything I've been through in my life has given me the skills that are going to be really needed to rehabilitate the broken, traumatized community that will be left when this is all over.

I don't yet know if I'd do this on the side while working as a professor in Iran, like I am in the US, or if I'd leave academia altogether. I also don't know if my American husband would come with me, and if we'd have a long-distance marriage, or what that aspect of the plan could look like.

It would be a huge step for me and other diaspora Iranians to say goodbye to their loved ones and go back to Iran. But so many people have died hoping for this moment, we're not going to say, "Sorry, I'm not going to make it to the biggest party of our lifetime." Of course, we're going to go.

Do you have a story to share about going back to Iran? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com