Growing Pains 

I don’t remember my parents ever being together. 

They separated when I was only a year old and that same year my dad moved overseas.

When I was five, Mum and I migrated here too.

I grew up with Mum, her siblings and my grandparents.

There were cousins, aunties, uncles and always somebody around.

But as I got older and started understanding more, I began to see the differences between my family and the families around me.

By the time I was seven, my family had already changed in so many ways and I was still trying to understand where I fitted into everything.

Most times, I’d look at my cousins and see their parents together, and it bothered me so much.

I didn’t have the words for it back then.

Sometimes it came out as anger, and sometimes I genuinely hated life simply because I couldn’t understand why mine had to look the way it did.

What I Had 

And yet, when I look back now, there’s another side of my childhood that I will always hold close to my heart.

My grandparents were my home.

Through every change, they remained familiar.

They were the constant I could always come back to.

They stayed steady while everything in life seemed to shift.

They gave me a childhood filled with so much love, that I probably didn’t appreciate it the way I do now.

I really was raised by a village.

And when I look back now, I think about how normal all of it felt to me at the time.

The crowded rooms, the different homes, the changing family dynamics, and having my grandparents there through it all.

I was simply a child living in the middle of it, without knowing how much those years would stay with me.

When My Time Comes

If I ever have kids of my own, I can only pray to give them a childhood different from mine.

I’ve never wanted to measure a good life by what you have around you.

It’s always been about what lives within it.

To me, family and love have always had to go together.

You can have everything on the outside and still be missing what matters most on the inside.

Not a perfect family, or a life filled with everything money can buy.

But definitely one where love is felt rather than said.

Because that’s something I understand differently now.

The Moment I Chose Differently 

I started paying attention to the things that genuinely made me happy, rather than automatically reaching for what I thought I wanted.

My priorities became clearer, and I began to appreciate the simple things I once overlooked.

I became more intentional with my time, the things I gave my energy to, and the kind of environment I wanted around me.

I stopped rushing to have an answer for everything and started allowing myself to experience life as it came.

I think that’s when I realised that change doesn’t always have to be dramatic.

Sometimes it’s simply noticing that your perspective has shifted, and choosing to honour that instead of forcing yourself back into an old way of thinking.