13 February 2022 The Birthday Journal Whatawaytoentermythirddecade! Igrew up fast. It didn’t occur to me then that the fire in me was being stoked when I picked up the pieces, held my head high and took up responsibility, to help my widowed mother bear her now extra burden of raising five children alone. I didn’t realize that by taking up jobs in retail shops like Marks and Spencer’s, Next and Peacocks, doing a stint at a Finance House in WestMinster, and helping my mother with her African Food export business, I was responding to life’s challenge as it whispered, “Go girl!’ ‘You can do it,’ ’Don’t give up. ‘You have potential.’ Then in 2004, towards the last phase of my third decade, something good happened tome. Love.Or so I thought at the time. It was like some sort of madness tugging at the strings of my heart. It brought out the colour in everything; the green in the grass, the popping colours in the flowers, even the hues of fallen autumn time leaves were to me a richer shade of brown. It was as if life was compensating me for the loss of my dad, saying to me, “child you have suffered, here is a little something,” for, I met and fell in love with my childhood heart throb in London. I became pregnant in 2007 while studying Business Administration and Human Resource Management at Oxford Brooks University. I made the decision to defer my course. We got engaged in 2009 and I had my daughter in that same year. In 2010, my partner got a job offer in Accra, Ghana so we relocated to Accra. What I didn’t knowwas that life was hiding around the corner, its arms widely stretched, waiting to give me my second lemon. My blissful marriage was about to be hit hard by crises. When we relocated to Ghana, our marriage was fraught with many challenges. The burden of living in our in-laws’ outhouse, and the meager and inconsistent earnings of my husband made life unbearable. In indomitable Blondie (movie character) style, I rose up to the occasion of finding a job to support my young family. This show of strength was not well received by my husband and his family and it led to the breakdown of our relationship, eventually resulting in a divorce. I felt like a failure. I loved marriage. I almost committed suicide. Once again, life was stretching me but the fire in me was blazing. I held on to hope with my firmest grip ever, picked myself up and reared up to go. I wasn’t called Blondie for nothing. Growing Up Fast MY THI RD DECADE
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