In search of home

In a quiet village in Pakistan, a girl named Zoya was born into a house that never truly felt like hers. From her earliest days, she was loved, yet reminded—directly or indirectly—that she was temporary.

“You’re just a guest here,” they would say, smiling gently.
“One day, you’ll leave for your real home.”

She played in the courtyard, ran barefoot on the dusty floor, helped her mother in the kitchen, and sat quietly when guests came. But inside, even as a child, she knew—this was not her home. She was growing up in a place she could not claim.

She was told to behave well, speak less, and prepare for her future husband’s home. Her dreams of becoming a teacher were softly silenced with “That’s not important now. You’ll be married soon.”

At twenty-two, she did get married.

There were celebrations, rituals, songs, and tears. Her parents hugged her tightly, gave her gold and clothes and sent her away, hoping she’d be happy in her new home. But no one told her that she would again feel like a stranger.

Her husband’s house was unfamiliar. The furniture had memories she hadn’t lived. The walls had stories she hadn’t heard. She tried to smile, tried to settle, tried to believe them when they said, “This is your house now.”

But was it?

She needed permission to do the simplest things—cook what she liked, visit her mother, hang a photo on the wall. If she spoke too much, she was told, “You’re a guest here. Stay in your limits.”
If she spoke too little, they whispered, “She’s so cold.”

She lived in that house, slept there, worked there—but never felt it was hers. Her place in that home always felt fragile, held by threads that could break with just three words. Words that had the power to erase her identity as a wife in an instant.

Still, she stayed. She adapted.

She gave birth to children, raised them with love and patience. She gave them everything—time, strength, sleepless nights, and a childhood full of warmth. The house began to fill with her touch—her cooking, her voice, her presence.

And yet… it still wasn’t hers.

She lived in a home where she was always someone’s something—someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, someone’s mother. But never just herself, never the owner, never the one in control.

Years passed.

Her hair turned grey. The children she raised began to grow wings of their own. They built lives, homes, futures. And slowly, for the first time, Zoya found a little space in the house where no one questioned her. A quiet corner with her books, her plants, her memories.

It wasn’t much—but it was hers.

Not because someone gifted it to her. Not because she was finally given the right. But because she had built it—emotionally, silently, painfully—through years of sacrifice, strength, and endurance.

Zoya’s story is not rare.

It’s the story of millions of women in Pakistan.

A girl is born, but she is never seen as a permanent member of the family she grows up in.
She is married off, but never given true authority in the house she is sent to.
She lives years of her life fulfilling duties—yet her place remains conditional.
Only when she has passed her youth, raised her children, and grown old, is she finally allowed to sit in a corner of the home and call it hers.

But by then, a lifetime has already passed.

In the end, all she ever wanted was not a mansion or wealth—just a place she could truly call her own. A home.

She lived in houses,
but never had a home.
She smiled in rooms,
where her name was never carved in stone.

She packed dreams in silence,
and wore strength like jewelry.
She was called "someone’s daughter",
then "someone’s wife",
then "just Ammi."

But no one ever called her
"the owner of this space."

She made tea for everyone,
but never for herself.
She gave rooms to her children,
but found none for her own breath.

And only when her back bent
from years of bending,
and her eyes tired
from endless waiting,
did life finally whisper,
“Here… take this corner.
You’ve earned it.”

So if you ever see a woman
sitting quietly by the window,
smiling without speaking,
know this—

She is not just resting.
She is finally home.
A home she built,
without bricks or title,
but with love, patience, and pain.

And maybe, just maybe—
that is the strongest home of all.