From the Balkans to Sunbury, Ohio.

One of the author's childhood homes in Ohio. (Photo via Jonny Gartner)

Whenever people ask where I’m from, my hesitation is long enough to make things awkward. 

I was born in a small town in southern Central Albania called Lushnjë. My twin sister and I spent a year and a half in an orphanage in the capital of Tirana before we were adopted and rather unceremoniously transplanted to Cincinnati, on the banks of the Ohio River.