The Journey to A New Beginning

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The voice and the sentence kept on looping in my mind as I went back to my room. It wasn't unexpected - it was actually expected -, but the reality of it was something that my mind wasn't programmed to accommodate at that point. I felt like I was about to be uprooted from the only life I've ever known and be thrown into the deep without an end in sight.

I spent the whole night in a reality dreamland where I was supposed to be asleep, but my surroundings and the inevitable kept knawing at my mind as I laid face up, one half of me asleep, and the other half staring blankly at the ceiling.

The strays of golden rays of sunlight, streaming into my room was both a welcome relief and an unwelcome halo of dreaded reality. I was stuck in two minds, contemplating the possibility of bolting and retracting the decision which I had made myself and confirmed through my parents.

"I can't keep staying here with limited opportunities" I had told my mom "I need to explore other climes and see what comes out of it"

She was skeptical at first, but gave in to the suggestion after a few days of thought and consultation with my aunt. Now the reality of that impulsive suggestion had manifested in a decision for me to go stay with my aunt and the husband, in my search for greener pastures.

"The grass is not always greener on the other side" my sister had tried to persuade me, with her eyes welling up with tears.

"But no matter how hard you water the desert, you still won't have grass" I had responded in a stubborn manner.

But that was before that suggestion became reality, and I now sat quietly on my bed, shivering with fear, wishing that the day never came and hoping that my aunty doesn't come.

The thought of acclimatizing to a different culture, adapting to alien traditions and leaving behind all the people that I truly loved weighed heavily on my mind, sending balls of tears through my cheek onto the blanket.

But I knew that there was nothing I could do at that point, so I summoned courage and went about my morning duties and got prepaid for the long trip ahead. It wasn't long before my aunt arrived and I exchanged final pleasantries with my mom and siblings before hopping on the tricycle. I could feel my mom's bosom heaving heavily as she held me close and said a few words of blessing.

About three hours after leaving the motor park, I was in a dreamy state as my legs ached badly with the bad roads taking its own toll on my body, but my subconscious was jerked back to life by the sudden change in air quality and sounds filtering into the vehicle.

The air was damper, the road sides were roudy as street touts kept flocking around, speaking a language that I had only ever heard on radio, the music starkly different and groovy, and even the sun was hotter and harsher. It was as if I had been transported into a different galaxy entirely.

As we alighted from the bus, I noticed one of the street boys walking rapidly towards us to grab our bags and start blabbing inaudibly, and as if in a reflex action, my aunty's mood changed and she went bezerk on the guy not minding that she was with baby.

"You think say I be jjc?" she yelled at the guy who immediately started moving in the opposite direction. "come na make I show you say I dey mad" she added, adjusting her headtie.

At that point, I knew I was in trouble. I have always been known to be calm and gentle, almost timid. I wasn't one to thrive in a hostile and violent environment. I always eschewed all forms of friction and fight and could not imagine how I'd survive in such an environment.

But as the golden glow that had awaken me up that early morning began to recede into the horizon, a sentence from my conversation with my aunt earlier that evening emboldened my mind.

"See you're not here to continue the life you had at home, but to start a new chapter all together" she had said, before adding "you have to toughen up".

By the time I left the house the following day, I already knew that I was about to start a journey that would forever shape my life.

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