Return to Journey 7

It’s hard to believe it’s almost over, the journey I embarked on in the autumn of 2011…

Over this time, I have met all kinds of people; different races from different countries with different personalities. I have met more people in this period than I have in all my life before it put together. I have learnt from people and I have been learnt from.

It’s all been a whole load of happenings after happenings. I remember just before we left for uni, the church held a session to congratulate us and asked for God’s presence to go with us. We all received gifts to ease our way into the new system. While they were sorry to see us go, I felt like I couldn’t leave fast enough!

Finally, I was going to be away from my parents. That I was now solely responsible for myself and my decisions were all that mattered. I couldn’t wait to experience all there was to it.

I guess in my head it was this big “get-away”; a life of pleasing me, myself and I. I could wake up some days and just think, “I really don’t feel like leaving my flat today or doing anything” and nobody could challenge that (I definitely would miss that after uni).

My father who had always been strict about attending all classes (and extra classes where available) couldn’t know better if I went for my lectures or not. That on its own felt like reason enough to come to uni.

In my first year, I did everything and anything there was to do: shopping, sports, committees, travelling and just about anything that caught my fancy.

By the second year, it was beginning to register a bit that there was a primary reason I came to uni in the first place; to study. By the end of second year, I thought I had grasped what it was all about, but third year is proving otherwise.

Situations that I never would have imagined happening in a life time keep popping out of nowhere. There has been so much to deal with that by the end of last year, the devil was filling my mind with doubts on if I would even graduate this year. In my head, I would see myself staying back, having to repeat a year because of situations that have gone awry.

It’s been about three months since then, but I can now see the end of the line and it’s closer than ever!

About two weeks ago, my uni sent an email to us all regarding our graduation. As I looked at the email, all the events that had taken place since I came here flashed through my mind. I thought to myself… It’s hard to believe all that time has gone past, but it’s great to finally see the finish line.

A couple of weeks ago, there was an announcement in church for this year’s women’s conference. It was the usual tradition close to Mother’s Day: the church would hold a conference for women; married women and mothers. I had always imagined it would be of no use to me considering the people that attended. But this year was different.

When the announcement for the conference was made, the thing that caught my attention was the fact that it would be held at a secret location that would be revealed closer to the conference date.It was not going to be held at church as it had always been done.

Also, the title was changing from women’s conference to ladies’ conference; which would include ladies from age 18 and above. The caption for this year was WOW – Woman of Worth. As I listened, I got more interested. While I knew I wasn’t going for the main reason the conference was organised, I anticipated it all the same.

I had always thought those conferences would just be discussions on a woman’s duty to her husband and family. Unlike my expectations, the focus was geared toward a woman as her own person, how she is to value herself and how she adds value to others. People were so open with their diverse situations; being a source of strength one to another.

In my session with my counsellor, our conversations had always focussed on me accepting who I am and not the labels people or my past had attached me. We had never really talked about me seeing myself as a woman. Until the conference, I didn’t realise that that was an area in my life that was still unresolved.

As I sat in the conference, I saw my present self and the kind of woman I would like to become; there was such a huge gap between the two. A part of me had always known that I wanted to have a family of my own. Each time I had thought about it in time past, there had always been so many disjointed pieces that I never knew how to fix, but it finally feels like it is all coming together.

By the end of the conference, I was consoled and encouraged. The whole event was so much more beyond my expectations. I am sure I would have regretted it if I had missed it. It felt like it had been planned just for me. I was so thankful to God that I went regardless of my reason.

Seeing as last week would be my official last day at uni, I decided to have one last meeting with my counsellor, at least before final exams start. I had not attended as much sessions as I used to before because things were evidently becoming much better.

While in the meeting, we did the usual recap of things I had done since our last session. We started off with the academic-related issues and then moved on to talk about family. It was one of the few times I was actually looking forward to this part of our conversations.

As I explained to her, I have not been home for a proper visit since the start of the academic year and even for this Easter holiday, I was not going to go home. While we were talking about this, we talked about the improvements in relationships in my family, especially between my parents.

I told her that while there has been changes in how we relate to one another, I still found it difficult to spend a lot of time with them. I don’t know if it was because we have had such a difficult relationship for years and years but I can’t help but find it hard to imagine a “close” relationship with my parents.

We went from that to talk about other things I had been doing. I was really excited to tell her about the fact that I have been trying new things like baking bread. Although that had a number of failures at the start, I realised that the more I did it, the more I enjoyed it. Especially having to bake for my sister every week and sharing it with her.

For me, it was an unexpected feeling! I guess I had been so closed up to a lot of things that the idea that doing something simple and ordinary would appeal to me, never occurred to me. We both got really excited as we talked about this.

I had gotten so used to the excitement of looking forward to talking about the week’s treats with my sister every Sunday when we meet at church. So much so that I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to make her anything for two weeks.

While that might be a positive thing; bonding and all, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat uncomfortable with the recent changes. Do they mean I am changing as a person too? And if that’s the case, does that mean I wasn’t my actual self before? There’s just so much unknown that it makes the future unclear and unpredictable.