Taking Flight

I knew I would have to go back to school before I even finished my Bachelor’s degree. My first go at university was quite a disaster. Maybe disaster is somewhat dramatic but things didn’t go how I had planned or imagined. I arrived at my Alma mater Rhodes University unsure what I wanted to do, clueless about who I was and with no concrete goals to achieve. Little wonder I got lost almost immediately.

Keeping up with classes, finding my place among my peers and charting my course for my future were such a struggle. Before I could even grasp what was happening, I was drowning. My poor self-knowledge didn’t help at all, I had no grasp of my strengths or weaknesses and how to make the most of both. In my bewildered state, drugs became my safe place, and things got worse alarmingly fast but at least I felt numb to it all.

I received a brutal reality check when I failed my first semester of third year. Failure was not new to me but at such a crucial time in my life, it was absolutely devastating. At that point, graduation seemed so far away from me. I had no idea how I would explain to anyone how I had fallen so far since it made no sense to me either. My second semester, I put all my energy into making sure I passed my exams. And I did, and I even got a degree, a double major degree at that. But it was too little, too late. I knew this at the time but I didn’t understand how bad it was till later on.

Adjusting to university was hard but nothing could have prepared me for life after uni. I decided to move back in with my parents to Côte d’Ivoire, a long way from my home country, Uganda. Culture shock and adapting to the different climate were the least of my challenges. Job applications, a world totally unfamiliar to me, were my greatest source of grief. Every rejection was a painful reminder of how my irresponsibility at university had far-reaching consequences. For a good while, I was stuck in a state of self-pity, regret and anxiety.

Eventually I realised that remaining in that state would just leave me in the same place I had worked so hard to get away from. I gathered what was left of my strength and dedicated it all to a journey of self-discovery. Who was I? What did I like and dislike? What was my passion? I still don’t have all the answers to these questions, but that’s the beauty of a journey, you learn something new with each step.

I was quite enthusiastic at the prospect of having a second chance to discover what interested me and pursue that through education and exploration. However, I found that applying for university was just as discouraging as applying for work. I gave up countless times, but the realisation that I had no other choice forced me to keep pushing.

My resilience finally paid off, and that is where this new journey began for me. I knew I had to get way out of my comfort zone and do things I had never imagined I could. I left the country that had become home to me, I left my family and friends and moved to Amsterdam, a place I had never been to, where I knew no one and nothing.

Every day I am faced with a different fear, some new, some recurring. This time though I have a better idea of who I am, what I want and funnily enough being so far out of my comfort zone means I have nowhere to go but up. The place where I left my comfort zone no longer exists so I only have two choices: to freeze or to fly. So here I am, taking flight.