Every time I prepare to leave Nepal, I notice something unexpected about myself. In the days leading up to my flight, I often find myself doing what many of us do. I complain about the traffic. I grow impatient with paperwork that takes longer than it should. I wonder why some things still feel unnecessarily difficult despite how much potential our country holds. Like many Nepalis, I can easily list the things I wish were different.
And then, I also realise the sudden shift. As I begin packing my suitcase, my attention shifts. I find myself carefully making space for packets of cheura, homemade achar, spices my mother insists I take, and little reminders of home that somehow feel impossible to replace, even though I know I can find many of them abroad. I linger a little longer over tea with my parents. Familiar neighbourhood sounds, which had blended into the background only days before, suddenly become precious. Without anyone saying it aloud, I become acutely aware that I am about to leave a place that continues to shape me in ways I rarely notice while I am living in it.
Living abroad has made me realise that my relationship with Nepal is held together by two emotions that seem, at first glance, to contradict each other.
I love this country deeply. And I often feel frustrated by it. For a long time, I assumed I had to choose between those feelings. That loving home meant speaking only of its beauty, while pointing out its challenges somehow made me less grateful. Yet the more I have lived away, the more I have realised that genuine love rarely asks us to ignore what hurts. In fact, it often asks us to pay closer attention.
Conversations with friends, whether they still live in Nepal or have built lives elsewhere, often circle the same tension. We celebrate the warmth of our communities, the generosity of our families, the resilience that has carried generations through uncertainty. At the same time, we speak honestly about limited opportunities, the exhaustion of navigating systems that often feel slow or unequal, and the heartbreak of watching so many young people believe that their dreams must be pursued somewhere else.
It is tempting to see these emotions as incompatible. But perhaps they are not. Perhaps this is a feeling many of us know more intimately than we realise.
We celebrate every achievement Nepal makes, yet worry about the opportunities our children may never have. We proudly introduce ourselves as Nepali wherever we go, yet spend evenings wondering why so many talented young people feel they must leave to build the lives they dream of. We miss home when we are away, but sometimes feel restless when we return. Gratitude and frustration often sit beside each other, shaping the way we think about the place we call home.
As women, this emotional relationship with home can become even more layered. Home is rarely just a geographical place. It is where we first learned what it meant to belong, to care for others, to carry family traditions, and often, to carry expectations. Even after moving away, many women continue to hold these invisible threads together, remembering birthdays across time zones, checking in on ageing parents, sending gifts during festivals, worrying about family members from thousands of miles away, and finding comfort in recipes, songs, or conversations that make distance feel a little smaller. We may leave home physically, but emotionally, home often continues to travel with us.
For a long time, I wondered whether feeling both grateful and frustrated meant that I was somehow being unfair to my country or even to myself. Over time, I have come to understand that these emotions are not signs of confusion; they are signs of connection. We rarely feel deeply about places that mean nothing to us. It is precisely because we care that we notice what hurts, and because we hope that we continue imagining what could be different.
Psychologists describe this ability to hold seemingly opposite emotions at the same time as emotional complexity. Rather than experiencing life in simple categories of good or bad, emotionally healthy people are often able to acknowledge that love can exist alongside disappointment, hope alongside uncertainty, and gratitude alongside grief. Research by psychologist Susan David on emotional agility similarly reminds us that wellbeing is not about replacing uncomfortable emotions with positive ones. It is about making space for the full range of our emotional experience instead of forcing ourselves to choose only one feeling.
This is why conversations about Nepal often feel so emotional. We are not simply discussing roads, policies, jobs, or opportunities. We are talking about identity, belonging, memories, family, and the future we hope for. These are deeply emotional conversations, even when they appear to be practical ones.
I sometimes think that living abroad has not made me love Nepal more or less. Instead, it has helped me love it more honestly. Distance has taught me that appreciation does not require silence, just as criticism does not erase affection. I can celebrate the generosity I continue to encounter every time I return home while also wishing for systems that allow more young people to imagine their future without feeling that they must leave. Those hopes are not opposites. They come from the same place.
As I have grown older, I have stopped asking myself whether I should feel grateful or frustrated. Instead, I have started asking a different question: Can I make room for both?
I think that question extends far beyond our relationship with a country. We ask it in our families, our friendships, our work, and even in the way we see ourselves. We can be proud of how far we have come while acknowledging how much further we hope to go. We can appreciate what we have inherited while wishing to reshape parts of it. We can love deeply without pretending that everything is perfect.
That is what emotional wellbeing invites us to practice; not the pursuit of constant positivity, but the courage to hold complexity without rushing to resolve it.
For many of us, Nepal will always be a place of contradictions. It is where some of our happiest memories live, and where some of our deepest frustrations are born. It is where we feel rooted, even when life has taken us elsewhere. It is the place we proudly introduce to the world, even as we strongly hope it becomes kinder, fairer, and more hopeful for the generations that follow.
I have come to believe that this is not divided loyalty. It is, perhaps, one of the most honest forms of love. And that is the complicated love we carry for home; not a love that asks us to look away from what is difficult, but one that allows us to hold gratitude, disappointment, hope, and belonging in the same heart. Because when we make room for all of these emotions, we are not only becoming more compassionate towards the places we call home. We are also becoming more compassionate towards ourselves.
