Where i've been

and where i think i'm going

Hi. I've missed you. It's been a hectic few months to be very honest. I can't believe what life looked like at the end of last 2025, and what it looks like today as i am writing to you.

As most of you know, in January got married to the love of my life. A sweet, wonderful, patient, gorgeous man who i've had the pleasure of loving for the past 5 years. You may have spotted a hairy arm or a bracelet of his on my instagram throughout the years and although he was the best secret ever, i'm so excited to finally share him with you. And no, this doesn't mean i'm going to become one of those influencers whose entire identity and content shifts just because i have a halal man in my life now. I value his privacy very much, so the last thing i want to be able to thrust him into a spotlight he never signed up for.

In mid January, we went to a honeymoon to Thailand and spent the days on the beach and adjusting to us living together after years of knowing each other. We went on adventures, ate as much as we could, and revelled in the stillness after a few months of go go go.

My mental sanity was hanging on by a thread, so a vacation - or honeymoon - was so needed at the time it came. Just a few days after we landed back in Karachi, a new door opened for me.

I got a response from Australia that my masters visa had been approved and i would be moving to my now husband’s city in just three weeks. As you can imagine, this was exciting and terrifying, and unexpected. If you know anything about me; visas & i are not friends. I first tried to go for a masters in Sept 2023, and i didn’t get the visa. I appealed, got it and then my dad got even sicker. So i withdrew. My father did pass shortly after, so if anything that was a blessing in disguise.

So when i did get a positive response, shocked was an understatement. That’s not to disregard the immense work i put into it for the prior 4 months. While i was applying for it, i was somehow also running 3 businesses on my own, doing pop-ups, managing wholesale, travelling and knee deep in the hell that is wedding planning (mine and my brothers).

Regardless, the visa came. I'm going. I spent the next few weeks taking in all the time i could with my family, my friends, my cat and my new in-laws. In mid-Feb after a very tearful rukhsati, I left my home to start a new life in a new land with a whole new family. Just uzi & i.

Candidly, the first weeks were really hard. Not to mention the move coincided with dad's death anniversary. Two years since the day and i can’t imagine how much had changed. Plans i was making with baba, conversations about mine and uzi's next move, all came true. Just without him to help or guide me through it. All of it in ways i could have never imagined, Alhamdulillah.

On one hand, I'm having the time of my life, finding who i am as a wife and a partner. Settling into a new country, new routines, setting up a new home for us, and engulfed with never ending meals, dishes and laundry. On the other hand, i'm grieving the only life i've known, and with that my subsequent independence, my (very humbly) thriving career and reassessing the trajectory for what is coming next.

The funniest part of all of this is since 2018 i have been trying to find a way out of Pakistan. I was so unbelievably miserable. Throw in a pandemic, my dad's cancer diagnosis and a failed master degree, leaving seemed like a pipedream inching further and further away from me. I had made my peace with never leaving. I was finally finding a place in Pakistan. I had a name independent of my family, i had hints of fame, i had friendships i'd been looking for my entire adult life, i had a few thriving concepts I was looking to expand nationally. Now, everything was halted to a hard stop as i packed up to leave. That too so suddenly. The grass is always greener, isn’t it?

As with all of my hardest choices, i took it to my therapist. Sitting on her couch, through tear filled eyes, we assessed the suffocating weight of this decision. What she said still lives rent free in my mind. In her kindest voice, "Tooba, you're leaving on a high. Your chapter in Pakistan has come to a beautiful, poetic close. If you fight it and stay here now, this is all your life will ever be and you'll resent it. The universe is closing this chapter for you. Are you going to listen?”

Ouf - I. will. resent. it.

Those words were unwaveringly honest, and rattled me to my core. As i sat with myself, i came to the realisation she was right. I would never grow, i would be so engulfed in my own ego and platform, i would never find the version I needed to be next. I set out to achieve all my goals. I expanded to wholesale and kept quality up, i started a supperclub i was unbelievably proud of, i won chef influencer of the year just a few months before i left, in September, i had made the decision to shut the cake business down, i was scheduled to give a Ted talk in November had my body not gotten so horribly ill from the stress of the months prior. ( I'm so proud of that talk, and wish i got to say it. Maybe I could publish it too, let me know in the comments)

In all honesty, I can't ask for more. This was the dream, and before i've even made it to 30, I have achieved all my dreams i set at 20. Some i didn't even know how to start on. I am still grappling with how insane that is. I somehow managed to live 5 lives in the years 18 to 29. I'm on top of a metaphorical mountain with no idea on how to move forward. This community has been a testament to how hard i've worked for everything i have now. I hope you know how i'm saying this. Not bragging, or pompous but with bewilderment, modesty and fulfillment.

So now, I have to start again. With experience, and confidence, and unconditional love from a man i would marry over and over again if i could. If you're missing me, as a content creator or a friend or a writer or an entertainer, whatever else i might be to you, i promise i will be back.

I'm not 100% sure what that looks like right now. What or how to do content when my husbands always around me in the kitchen, or how to juggle which parts of my life are mine, which are his and which are ours. I'm drawing new lines in the sand, and still confused as to where they go to. If i know anything about Tooba, she'll figure it out in due time. (if you have any ideas or miss anything i used to do, please comment! I need that reminder bad!!)

In the meanwhile, I appreciate your love and support always. And if any of you are in Adelaide, maybe we can be friends? I love you so much for everything we have been through together. I hope that you choose to be around for this next chapter. I feel like it may be the most candid, honest, happy and free one yet. Until then i'll talk to you, probably more on substack, soon.

Your candid cooking girlie,

Tooba x