I know Pakistanis will get offended if I said that Pakistan doesn’t feel like home anymore. But that’s true. It doesn’t. It was home for a long time. Even after I moved somewhere else but it remained home. Even after I moved again. Even when I started making a life far from Pakistan. It remained home.
But it didn’t feel like home after I gave birth to Minha. Minha and Adnan became home. Their scent and their feeling became home. Their overwhelming need for me became home. Raahim came and he marked USA even more permanently as home.
I don’t get homesickness. I don’t miss Pakistan. And not because of any material reason. Actually for no reason. It just ceased feeling like home like I ceased being a person with no care in the world to a woman with a husband, kids and a mortgage.
I know people have strange words and looks for me when I say this. But it’s true. I have no reason or longing to visit Pakistan.
But this doesn’t mean I don’t love Pakistan. Pakistan was once home. The best home that anyone could ask for. And it remained home until I started to make a home here. I haven’t stopped loving it. Do we stop loving previous things because we have new things? No. We can love more than one thing. We can call more than one place home. We can change our home and still think about the old one. Love knows no rules.
My mind as a woman 