Most people came to Malta for language school. I came for a girl and I never regretted it. We got married, had two kids, then grew into different people writing different stories. She gave me the most beautiful gift - two children who are more Maltese than I'll ever be. Now I'm divorced, still on this island, watching old videos from 2015 when Malta was simpler and I was stupider. This isn't about missing cheaper rent or better nightlife - it's about mourning the person I was when I believed love was enough and life had clear endings.

A raw, unapologetic look at what happens when you build a life abroad for love and discover that both you and the island transform into something you never expected.

Foreigner's "Waiting For A Girl Like You" hit different at 2 AM.

I'm scrolling through old videos on my phone - shaky footage from 2015, 2016, maybe 2017. Malta when it was still Malta. The colors look faded now, like someone turned down the saturation on my memories. But it's not the video quality that's different.

It's me. I'm different.

People think nostalgia is about missing things - missing the cheaper rent, the slower pace, the simpler technology. That's the surface level shit. The conversation starter for expats who've been here too long and need something to bond over at beach clubs.

• "Remember when Paceville was actually fun?"

• "Remember when you could find an apartment without selling a kidney?"

• "Remember when Malta felt like a village?"

But that's not what I miss.

I don't miss the prices. Complaining about inflation is for people who never truly belonged here, for the digital nomads optimizing their cost of living spreadsheets, for the ones who'll leave the moment a better deal shows up in Portugal or Thailand.

What I miss is emotional. Intangible. The kind of thing you can't photograph or put in a TikTok.

I miss the smell of those streets. The innocence. The way I used to get lost in life itself. My own purity. My childhood - even though I was 25. My happiness - the uncomplicated kind.

The Question Everyone Asks (And My Answer Nobody Expected)

"Why did you come to Malta?"

In my time, 90% of people had the same script: "For the language school." It was the acceptable answer. The one that made sense in a resume. The one that didn't require explanation.

My story was different. Embarrassingly different. Stupidly different.

I came here for a girl.

Not for a job opportunity disguised as romance. Not for a relationship that conveniently aligned with my career goals. I came here because I fell in love with someone, and she lived on this tiny rock in the Mediterranean, and I couldn't imagine a life where I wasn't near her.

I gave up everything for someone I barely knew.

My family thought I was insane. My friends placed bets on how long I'd last. "Three months, maximum." My mother cried at the airport - not the sentimental tears of a proud parent, but the worried tears of someone watching their son make a catastrophic mistake.

And you know what? I've never regretted it. Not for a single second.

The Part Where the Story Gets Real

We got married. We had two children. She gave me the two most beautiful kids in the world.

Let me be clear about something: That's not romantic exaggeration. That's not the hyperbole of a father looking at his offspring through rose-colored glasses.

She gave me two human beings who changed everything about how I understand existence. Two people who made me better simply by existing. Two reasons to become someone worth being.

I will never forget that. I will always respect her for that. Just for that alone.

No matter what happened after. No matter how the story changed. No matter what chapters we ended up writing separately.

She will always be the mother of my children. Nothing changes that. Nothing diminishes that.

Even though we went different ways. Even though we're writing different stories now. Even though the person I was when I met her barely resembles the person typing these words.

What Nobody Tells You About Building a Life

Here's what they don't mention in the romance movies:

Love gets you to the island. Love gets you through the first year of culture shock, language barriers, and family WhatsApp groups questioning your sanity.

But love doesn't tell you what happens when you actually succeed at building the life you came here to build. The early years were perfect in their chaos. We were building something. That was enough. The kids came. Suddenly life had structure. Purpose. Weight. We weren't just two people figuring shit out anymore - we were parents, providers, decision-makers responsible for shaping human beings.

And somewhere in that transition from "us against the world" to "us building a world for them," we became different people. Not worse people. Not better people. Just different people who happened to share a past.

The Divorce You Don't See Coming

Everyone thinks divorce happens because of some dramatic event. An affair. A betrayal. Some breaking point where everything shatters.

Ours wasn't like that.

It was quieter. Sadder. More honest.

We woke up one day and realized we'd been living parallel lives for months. Maybe years. We were excellent co-parents, functional roommates, business partners managing a household.

But we weren't us anymore.

The person she needed me to be and the person I was becoming didn't align. The life she wanted and the life I was building diverged. We were speaking different languages while using the same words.

And the worst part? Nobody was wrong.

Not her. Not me. Just two people who changed in directions that didn't intersect anymore.

We could have stayed. People do it all the time. For the kids. For the stability. For the fear of starting over. For the mortgage and the shared Netflix account and the comfortable predictability of known unhappiness.

But we respected each other too much for that.

So we separated. Stayed friends. Stayed co-parents. Stayed in each other's lives because that's what adults do when they share children and history and a genuine desire for each other's happiness. 

For a while. Yes for a while. Those were the days. 

The Malta That Existed Only For Me. This is the part where I tell you what I actually miss about old Malta. I miss who I was allowed to be here. In my home country, I had a predetermined path. Expectations. A version of success that was already written. Family pressure. Social scripts. The weight of everyone's opinions about who I should become.

Malta gave me permission to be nobody.

I could walk down Republic Street and not a single person knew my history. Didn't know my family's reputation. Didn't care about my university degree or my career trajectory or my five-year plan.

I was just some guy who moved here for love. And that was enough.

I found work. I learned the language - poorly, but enough. I made friends with other misfits who'd washed up on these shores for their own complicated reasons. We built a community of people united by the fact that we'd all chosen something unexpected.

Malta in 2015 was small enough that you'd run into the same faces everywhere, but big enough that nobody was judging your choices. It had the anonymity of a city and the warmth of a village simultaneously.

That Malta doesn't exist anymore.

Instagram changed how people experienced the island. Suddenly every wall was a photo backdrop. Every restaurant was "Instagrammable." Every experience was content. People stopped living here and started performing here.

The expat community exploded. Gaming companies. Blockchain startups. Digital nomads. Remote workers. iGaming. Crypto bros. Everyone came with spreadsheets comparing cost of living, tax structures, visa requirements. Malta became a life hack instead of a life.

And the locals? They watched their island transform into something unrecognizable. Rent doubled, then tripled. The language shifted. The culture adapted. Paceville stopped being where Maltese people went and became where Maltese people avoided.

But life doesn't have endings. Just pauses between chapters.

The girl became my ex-wife. The island became a business opportunity. The community became a demographic. The love became co-parenting logistics and shared Google Calendars. None of it was bad. None of it was wrong. It was just different from the story I thought I was writing.

The Price of Growth

Here's the uncomfortable truth I'm still processing:

You can't stay the person who gets on the plane. That person dies the moment they land. The guy who moved here for love? Gone. Replaced by someone more cynical, more knowledgeable, more successful, more divorced. The Malta that welcomed that guy? Also gone. Replaced by something more efficient, more cosmopolitan, more expensive, more everything.

We both evolved into versions of ourselves we didn't expect.

And maybe that's okay. Maybe that's the whole point. Maybe nostalgia isn't about wanting to go back - it's about acknowledging how far we've come from where we started.

The Part Where I Find Peace

My kids are Maltese in a way I'll never be.

They are origin - the real Malti, not my broken tourist version. They know which festa belongs to which village. They have friends whose grandparents were born in the same house they live in now.

They are the life I came here to build. Not the marriage. Not the career. Not the apartment or the bank account or the residency permit. Them. Two humans who exist because I got on a plane for love.

Their mother gave me that. That gift transcends everything that came after. Every argument. Every disappointment. Every moment of "this isn't working anymore." She gave me them. And I will respect her forever just for that.

What I Know Now

Malta taught me something brutal and beautiful: You don't find yourself. You build yourself. Repeatedly. Until you die. The person I was in 2015 needed to believe love was enough. He needed Malta to be simple. He needed certainty. That person couldn't have survived what came next.

So he died. Got replaced by someone stronger, more flexible, more realistic. Someone who could handle divorce without falling apart. Someone who could watch his island change and adapt instead of just complaining.

Someone who could write 3,000 words about nostalgia and still choose to stay.

Because here's the secret: I'm still here.

Not because of the girl anymore. Not because of the original story. Not because Malta stayed the same.

I'm here because this is where my kids are. Where my history is. Where the next chapter gets written.

The streets don't smell the same. The innocence is gone. The simplicity evaporated.

But I'm still here. And that means something.

The Foreigner Song Ends

"Waiting For A Girl Like You" fades out.

I close the old videos. Put down my phone. Look out at the Mediterranean - still the same sea that was here when I arrived, even though everything around it transformed.

The girl I came here for isn't that girl anymore. I'm not that guy anymore. Malta isn't that Malta anymore.

But we're all still here. Changed. Evolved. Different.

Maybe that's the real happy ending.