SOUTH KOREA: Belonging Is the Women Who Choose Us

After crossing four countries in search of home, Sahar Ayachi discovered that belonging isn't found in geography, careers, or achievements—but in the women who see us, hold us, and choose us again and again.

"Maybe the question isn’t ‘Where do I belong?’ Maybe it’s ‘Who makes me feel like I belong?’"

For years, I chased belonging the way people chase destinations.

I crossed four countries: Tunisia, Korea, Japan, and Germany. For education, for career, for ambition. For a version of myself I was becoming, and another I was running from. With every move came a new apartment, a new language, a new university, a new workplace, a new map of expectations.

People would say my life looked bold and exciting. And in some ways, it was.

But underneath the surface was something no one really talks about.

That sense of home and belonging most people need. And when you move, eventually, the definition of "Home" and "Belonging" you once knew disappears. The further you go, the more you quietly lose the sense of home you came with.

The lucky ones find a replacement for those definitions quickly. The even luckier ones carry on living their best lives without needing to define those terms.

But for those like me, that disappearance creates a quiet ache you can't name.

In fact, belonging isn't guaranteed just because you land somewhere new. Or because you speak the language, no matter how fluently. Or because you made lots of friends and can navigate the city without maps.

Every time I moved (and I moved eight times), I rebuilt life from zero. Including the times when I went from Korea, Japan, or Germany back to Tunisia.

New routines, new norms, new communication styles, new social rules.

I adapted.

I learned.

I grew.

In the male-dominated fields where I worked, being resilient and capable wasn't optional; it was the entry ticket. So I went for the VVIP Package. Because resilience is a color I knew had to fit me perfectly.

To have a seat at the table, to be seen and heard and taken seriously, I had to prove myself, come what may, to an endless influx of men who were always taller and bigger and louder and almost always older.

To the outer world, I was the woman who could do anything.

To my inner world, however, I was the woman who lost her North Star.

And nothing around seemed to help.

Living alone is the best teacher of independence. Living alone in a foreign country—or three—deserves the corresponding Nobel Prize.

What nobody teaches you, though, is that when independence becomes automatic, it becomes invisible, even to yourself.

You handle everything alone because you always have. You carry stress quietly. You don't ask for help because you don't even think in that direction. Until one day you're so unwell you can barely move, and there are people around you, yet your instinct is still to say, "I'll figure it out."

Thankfully, despite my stubbornness, I somehow still managed to make friends. Very good ones. (Doesn't mean I knew how to ask for help or be less stubbornly independent).

My turning point wasn't a career breakthrough, but a connection.

There's a moment in every ambitious woman's life—and we need to speak about it more openly—when achievement stops being the thing that fills you. When the next milestone doesn't make you feel more understood. When strength stops feeling empowering and starts feeling lonely.

To someone who spent years defining herself through her career, reaching that moment added fresh turmoil to what already existed.

Once again, thankfully, despite my stubbornness and those other issues, I kept the good friends I'd made.

What finally grounded me and punched a massive hole through that thick turmoil wasn't success, but friendship.

Female friendships.

The women in my life, across continents and years, became the first place where I didn't need to be the "strong one" or the "independent one" or the "capable one." They chose me not for what I could do or for what I achieved, but for who I was beneath the layers. They reminded me that softness isn't the opposite of ambition; it's what makes ambition sustainable.

They became my anchor in ways geography never could.

That’s when I knew belonging isn't a place. It's the women who choose us.

I used to think belonging was something I would find if I kept moving. The right country, the right job, the right environment.

Now I know: Belonging isn't a location. It's a feeling. The feeling of being seen, chosen, and understood.

It's the women who check on you, even when you don't know how to ask for support. The ones who soften with you, cry with you, hold your contradictions, and love the parts of you you're still learning to love yourself. The ones who don't need you to shrink or hide your truth to fit.

And just like that, a path started clearing up, right in the middle of the fog I'd spent 10 years in.

The definitions of "Home" and "Belonging" my heart and soul had been longing for were walking closer, on that path through the fog (and through the massive hole in the turmoil), ready to meet me with a hug. A hug that would feel like coming home, to where I belonged.

"Home" isn't a particular place, no matter how much I still love my room in my parents' house in Tunisia.

"Home" is the emotional safety we build and the people who help us build it.

And "Belonging"?

Maybe the question isn't "Where do I belong?" Maybe it's "Who makes me feel like I belong?"

Because at the end of all the moving, all the striving, all the reinventing, that's the only form of home that never expires, never relocates, and never needs unpacking.

The world will keep changing.

Careers will evolve.

Life will move.

But belonging, MY “Belonging”, is in the women who choose me, again and again, wherever I am. Just like I choose them, again and again, wherever they are.

And to you, dear reader, whether you have already found your sense of belonging or are still searching for it, I invite you to be that for another woman. Show up for a friend today, reach out, and start a conversation. Open your heart, listen deeply, and amplify her voice. It starts with one woman, but together, we can become the home we once searched for.

STORY AWARDS

This story was published as part of World Pulse's Story Awards program. We believe every woman has a story to share, and that the world will be a better place when women are heard.