How being home again taught me that love is not a finite resource, and belonging can be a beautiful, messy expansion.
I dreamed of this moment for months. The flight booked. The suitcases packed, not with the anxiety of a permanent move, but with the simple anticipation of return. I was going home. Back to Pakistan. Back to my room, my garden, the sun that knows how to stay.
And for the first few days, it was everything I had craved. The warmth seeped into my bones. The noise, the glorious, chaotic, familiar noise felt like a lullaby. I slept deeply. I ate until I was content. I sat in my kitchen and let the world feel simple again.
But then, something unexpected happened.
I was at a family dinner, laughing at a cousin’s joke, when someone mentioned Lisbon in passing. A news clip about Portugal’s weather. A casual, “Oh, isn’t that where you live now?”
And my heart did a little leap. A flutter of recognition. A quiet, private smile that I couldn’t suppress.
It happened again the next day. I saw a photograph of the Tagus River online. The storms were crashing the coastlines and many were affected by flash floods. A wave of longing washed over me, for my apartment, for the sound of the trams, for the particular light of a Lisbon afternoon. I found myself scrolling through photos on my phone, stopping at the ones of Parque das Nações, of the cork oak trees. I reached out to all the friends, checking on them, offering them the safety of my available apartment if they needed to.
I missed Lisbon. While standing in my own room in Islamabad.
And that realization hit me with a force I wasn’t prepared for. A strange, unsettling feeling crept in. Was this betrayal? Was I being disloyal to Pakistan? To the land of my birth, my ancestors, my deepest memories, simply because I had grown to love another place?
I sat with that feeling for a long time. I turned it over in my mind like a stone, examining its edges.
And then, slowly, I came to a different conclusion.
Love is not a pie. It is not a finite resource that must be divided, with a larger slice for one meaning a smaller slice for the other. Love is a muscle. It grows with use. It expands to hold more.
I loved Pakistan first. I will always love Pakistan. It is the soil of my childhood, the language of my dreams, the scent of jasmine on a summer night. It shaped me. It holds my people, my history, the graves of my parents. That love is not fragile. It is not threatened by another love.
Portugal is different. It is the place where I rebuilt myself. Where I learned to be vulnerable, to ask for help, to let go of control. It is the country that welcomed me. A nobody with four suitcases, and gave me safety, freedom, and a new kind of peace. How could I not love it back?
I am not betraying Pakistan by loving Portugal. I am simply becoming someone new. Someone whose heart is large enough to hold two skies, two languages, two versions of home.
When I hear someone mention Lisbon, my heart sings. That is not a rejection of Islamabad. It is a testament to the fact that I survived the transition. I grew roots in new soil. And somehow, miraculously, those roots did not uproot the old ones. They just grew alongside them.
I am a Pakistani woman. And I am a Lisbon resident. Both are true. Both are whole. And neither one diminishes the other.
Do you ever feel torn between two places? Have you ever felt guilty for loving a new home? You are not alone. Let’s talk about it.
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