CHEERS TO 30;TO REDEFINING ONESELF

Psalms 71:20–21

Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.

Cheers to 30, an age that am happy to step in with grace. A lot has happened in the previous years and oh ,my have they shaped me! I have known what it means to love and not to hold, how you can love someone so deeply but still not end up together. How you can as well have all you wanted in all your life.

My 20s haven’t been as fun as my friends .As i could see from their feeds on Facebook and Instagram at that time.How you could see them travel from one country to another, or how you could see them hop from one relationship to another .Well ,they were those that got lucky and got married.

Excuse me! ahem! not those come we stay, A beg!!officially getting married. Going through the proposal stage,You know a man getting down on his knees and asking you to do life with him, how he wants to be your first born and you taking care of him to how he wants babies and build a life with you…am a Disney princess fan, so yes ,those you kinder see in the movies.

Yeah, but here I was, nursing a baby, surprisingly all that didn’t bag me an inch, I guess because I had accepted the fate that I had gotten myself into and was accepting of all the consequences it bore…yes, I was content. I was content with the man that stole my heart…as I thought in that time and was ready to do life with him, Ready to build an empire. Ready to be his support system and to encourage him to put his best foot forward for I believed in the greatness that surrounded him. I believed in his intellect. I had hope and dreams of how we will be millionaires if we just pushed harder and taped into his genius IT brain. How I will be his pride. The one right by his side when all this began to come to fruition. The one who believed in his dreams and held him through and through. But alas…life had its own plans.

Here I was, building a home for myself thinking it would last. Fast forward to 2 years later. life couldn’t just happen, a lot of emotions happened. A home that I had fought so hard to hold wasn’t mine anymore. Here I was again having to think of the life I had created and how to help it sustain itself. I didn’t have time to grieve in the day, it always happened during the night, where you ask yourself where did It go wrong? How did we get here?

Days go by and the pain seems to pass be. However, you still had to pick yourself up to make ends meet because you had a mouth to feed. So, you decide to go back to school to get your papers in order so that you can earn an income. That too is a struggle for you can’t afford a nanny, but know you have to sacrifice in order to get this paper for your child’s future to be secure.

So, you take her home, and there your journey begins. You get done with school and you tend to look for internships, by Gods favor it locates you at your step and your career journey begins.

It is 2021 and you look back and you are grateful for all that life has thrown at you. Yes! life had its own challenges but you went above it without losing your integrity or hurting someone. You marvel how you have grown to be true to yourself. How you have never lost yourself. How you take a time to pose when things aren’t working out to going back to the drawing board to start over again. How you have learnt not to be phased nor moved nor affected by people’s lives. what they are doing and how they are doing it in order to survive. For you have learnt that’s got nothing to do with you.

Its 18th of September a raining morning in Lodwar, a town in the county of Turkana Kenya’s wild north. Sitting on my bed and am grateful. Grateful that I just turned 30!

Grateful that am here doing what have also discovered that I love doing the most and of how things have had a way of falling in place. Am a testament of this because things are now good with mother and my daughter and I? Our relationship is flourishing. I spent sometime in the adoration chapel today giving thanks to papa for helping me sail things I thought would break me. Also laying down all this plans I have for the next ten years for him to bless them.

I intended to live my 30’s owning my identity and redefining me. Am glad that I now actually know what I want, and more importantly so, how to communicate if. Be it love, be my feelings be it want I don’t want. Something I never used to do. I am now secure of who I am and learning to say No without feeling quilt. Am learning how to deal with my emotions better and embracing my imperfection. I have never loved my body more than I do now and understanding that its part of growing up. Am just perfect the way I am. I have been through bad times, speak of betray and not being appreciated, talk of rejection. That made me appreciate the good when it comes along.

Glad that I no longer sweat the small things as much, it is what it is! I have as well learnt that expectations of people always lead to heart aches. Funny, how i have outgrown the things I once thought i couldn’t live without and then fall in love with what i didn’t even know i needed. This life indeed has a way of leading us onto journeys we would never go on if it were up to us. That’s why am not afraid anymore, it’s all about finding the lessons and having faith. In your journey.

I have made progress financially…can I just say am officially debt free? Am being intentional with my finances now, for I have learnt what it meant being vulnerable, how one has the power to do what they want because you just needed food to feed your baby or money to get your degree so you can fend for yourself. It’s really a paradox of how this tends to work being in Africa. How someone denies you a basic need till you give him what he /she wants because they have the power. What I came to learn later is an abuse. If your reading this and know you are withholding a basic right from someone yet you are in position to help? That is an abuse.

I know am stepping into my sexual prime…. oh, my am I ready for. I embrace it with all my heart. Mama Rashaan liberated that your 30s will be sex crazy but again your sexuality becomes your crown. your more comfortable with your body and what it wants.be it wanting it on the Kitchen counter, the bathroom slab, on the dining table, pinned to the wall it’s all yours to explore.

May i love my yoni and take care of it. Affirming to it with all the love i got. Taking care of it, for it will take care of me. Let only the one that stays have access to the throne of my kingdom. One who is deserving of me. One whose only intention is to love me beyond the nights. One who expresses his desire to purse me. One who wants to have and to hold me and never let go. One who walks me down the aisle. One who is intentional with me.

So, I wouldn’t allow my fantasies to build false hope and emotionally committing myself to a man who hasn’t verbally expressed his intentions to emotionally commit to me. or it will take me back to a dark place that I just came out of. I know am afraid of healthy relationships, how hard it is to unlearn all the toxic behaviors I adopted as coping mechanisms, how hard it is to convince myself that it is safe now.

I know am working hard to unlearn all the toxic behaviors I have adopted to act as a shield, how I know am not good for anyone right now. How am teaching myself to be good for me to how it’s perfectly okay to choose me for now. You understand that you cannot love someone whole right now for there are days when you are at war with yourself and it wont be fair to show it to the one you will be dating how heavy it is.so it’s okay for now to carry it alone.

I wish for me a type of love that stretches and recovers, the kind that tears and heals with new skin. The 1st Corinthians 13type of love, a relationship that you are both committed to each other, One that I know is mine, one who is my best friend and confident, my business partner, my prayer warrior and most of all my Husbae.

May this decade bring me all that I wish for? Most of all being kind. Kind to myself and those around me and believing eventually everything falls in its place. Even that Chevening scholarship you really want to in the UK.

No matter how slow you move forward and how tiny the steps you take are? You should be proud of yourself. You may arrive at your destination later than others but as long as you keep going nothing else matters.

Cheers to your 30s.Cheers to being intentional. Cheers to living a purposeful life.