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Growing up, I felt like I was the child who didn't have her life planned out like every other child who knew what they wanted at every stage. Now you might be wondering the kind of child I am, "Well," I'm not the type that lives life as it comes. Maybe I haven't really known myself very well, even at this point in my life.

Back to when everything felt like bliss and I didn't want it to end but then deep down I felt something was missing in my life and I needed to get back on track. At the late part of 2019, I had just finished writing my last exams in a higher institution. After my last exam, I contacted my uncle, who is based in a different city, and informed him about my graduation from the higher institution.

"What are your next plans in life?" My friend asked

"I just want to spend some time with my uncle at his place and maybe further my career in serving Nigeria," I reply.

I made the necessary travel plans and embarked on that journey with excitement. Got to my uncle's house and it felt like heaven, the space was like none that I have seen before. Slowly, I began to connect with the environment because it was different from the one I've always known or the one I grew up in.

On arrival, the first conversation I had with my uncle was about getting a job for myself that would help run some bills, but the next words my uncle uttered changed everything.

"Someone who stays with me doesn't work," he said.

Hearing those words I became speechless and didn't know the next words to utter. I felt like something had shifted inside of me. Staying at home and doing nothing isn't my thing, though my uncle's wife has a shop where she braids hair, and being someone who possesses the same skill, I decided to support my uncle's wife in her shop. Instead of doing nothing I had to keep myself busy at her shop.

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I started assisting my uncle's wife with the thought that I was gonna get a small tip from her to sort some personal bills, but unfortunately, nothing was coming in. Rather, whatever I wanted to purchase, I would have to go through my uncle's wife, and I wasn't pleased with the whole thing.

Everything I wanted was being provided, but I was still empty inside, "What could be missing?" I thought to myself. Every day that passes by, I get to think about the thing I wasn't getting right. The thoughts of not running faster than my shadow would step in because my uncle's wife would ring it in my ears that "I should take things slow and shouldn't run faster than my shadow" but then this question keeps pooping up in my head "what if my shadow has left me behind and is waiting for me somewhere and I'm nowhere to be found because I've decided to abide with saying of people by taking things slow".

At those moments in my life I felt like nothing was working, I wasn't growing or you can say I was stagnant "now that is the right word" seeing my course mates doing well for themselves and I, at the other hand was staying with an uncle that didn't want me to work and wanted me to depend on him fully for my funding.

Often I would find myself being sad for no reason, I wasn't comfortable anymore, though the house was comfortable, but inside of me, I wanted something more to do for myself.

I stayed patient, wishing for the manna to fall from heaven just like it always does, but this time around it was different; manna refused to fall. At the beginning of 2021, I completely felt disconnected from my life, I wasn't seeing myself anymore. So I summoned courage and threw caution to the wind and left my uncle's house, which felt like heaven. Going back home with nothing.

"Where do I start from" I muttered to myself.

Then something dawned on me that leaving my uncle's house is a fresh start already and that the journey has begun. I got back home that day, hugged everyone in the house, and told them I needed a job to kickstart my life and put it back in balance again.

Fortunately, the following day, I got a job offer and went for the interview. To my greatest surprise, I was accepted, and my career began.

Sometimes that step may feel like the wrong one, but when taken, it will feel like the best step you've ever taken in your entire life when you start seeing things turn out differently than you'd expected.

Thank you for reading 🧡