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January 17 is an important day for me. 6 years ago today I was freed, after being held hostage in Iran for 544 days. I was taken from prison, boarded a flight leaving Tehran and reunited with my family. It was a day of celebration and relief. 
My hostage ordeal has a happy ending, in large part because I had the benefit of a supportive family, employer and a large community of caring colleagues of friends, some of them very influential, all invested in my well being.
My circumstances & support structure were as much as anyone could hope for coming out of such a traumatic experience. And yet recovery & reintegration were — and some days continue to be — grueling. I wasn’t prepared for the challenges of freedom after being locked up. No one is.
5 years ago today I was freed from Evin prison in #Iran. @YeganehSalehi and I boarded a plane for a new life we couldn’t imagine. Isolated from most human contact and information for 544 days, I knew almost nothing about efforts to bring me home.
That began to change when we landed in Geneva. Waiting for us on the tarmac was @brett_mcgurk who, over 14 months, secretly negotiated our release. It almost fell through right at the end. He told us “someday I’ll tell you about the last 24 hours.”
I spent much of my time in my first months of freedom piecing together what had happened to me. True to his word, @brett_mcgurk and many other officials provided with me their accounts of working toward my release and the challenges and risks involved.
