We didn’t come this far to only come this far.
This week I celebrated a great milestone in my life. I have officially been doing this lawyer thing for a year and that is no small achievement. There’s a scrawny younger me (in the pictures she’s in an oversized blazer) somewhere shocked and proud of me. But this story doesn’t start with that scrawny young one. It’s starts where my story naturally begins; Kenya. As my bio says I was born in Kenya and completed some of my early education there. Kenya in my memories is sunshine and extended playtime at my grandmother’s house. Kenya was also where my interesting relationship with formal education started.
Christmas time in Kenya was great for many reasons; sunshine, cousins and new Christmas outfits. But Christmas came with one snag. In the finite wisdom of the Kenyan education board, exam results were released just before the holidays. By the time our family gathered for our Christmas meal everyone knew their fate. As so happens when exam results and a family gathering coincide, the question of results would come up.
Some helpful background – in the Kenyan system, you are ranked based on the number of students in a class. Number 1 being the best and the higher you go, the worse performing you are. Too frequently when I was asked the dreaded question, I would have to share with my listener that in a class of 30, I was number 30. I was the worst performer of my class. The dumbest of my collective. I had a comrade who also often shared the same fate as me and was floundering at the bottom of his class list, but it never made those moments any easier. If I’m honest those moments were early encounters with shame, but there was also some freedom to be found. I was always the one with the disappointing results and when you’re at the bottom, expectations are not that high. You get away with more and that proved to be a saving grace in some ways.
I say this story as background because today my job title might have you think that this came easy and I was studious from birth. At the age of 8, I believed me to be stupid. Now in my late twenties, I find myself a fully fledged lawyer. To speed through the rest of the story, my mum moved to the U.K. and I entered the British education system (which in itself is easier). I was an average student, but not necessarily the bottom of the class. I would say 3 things happened that were defining in me becoming who I am today: (i) I fell in love with reading; (ii) life from early gifted me with some kind hearted friends who were also incredibly smart; (iii) I had a family that did expect much from me starting with my grandmother and ending with my sisters.
Reading expanded my mind while my friends became benchmarks I could measure myself against. Comparison can be suffocating and even in those moments I would regularly beat myself up for still not being as smart as my friends. What happened though is, because of them, I shot for the moon. I missed, but I landed amongst the stars. Please note, even in the U.K. system I was an average student. This isn’t a story about someone who was the dumbest kid in Kenya, who then got four A*s and ended up in Oxbridge. That is not my story. I got ok grades in A level (though I did have a shock bad grade on results day which meant I was rejected from my first choice university). I really want to be clear and say you will not find exceptionalism in my story. I took a little longer than the formal education system says you should take. Even today, leave me for a little bit and i’ll surprise you. But give me time.
Ok enough of that story for now, but if you’ll allow me, some words of wisdom. If you are at a stage in your life and you find yourself to be the dumbest person in your “class”, as much of the world may try to convince you, your worth is not in your grades (or whatever metric intelligence is being measured on). My God says you’re a little lower than angels and he is mindful of you. So take care with how you are with yourself. Second, find the thing you love (to find that thing, try everything) cause it may just lead you somewhere unexpected (living in France, studying in China, organising an international women’s event where you meet some formidable women…).
My thing was reading, I read books with no other expectation but to find a good story. Practically, it meant I became better in subjects like English and History and more personally it gave me the language to understand my soul something which has never left me. When it came to deciding what to study at university, I (typical to me) had no clue where my life was heading and obviously didn’t know what degree would take me to “I don’t know”. So I went with what I knew, subjects that would essentially just involve me reading stories. I toyed with philosophy, but life led to me to history. What better story is there than what mankind has chosen to tell itself. Off I went to the University of Leicester (remember not my first choice of uni) and little did I know what the creator of the universe had in store for me. One day i’ll get into what adventures I found at uni, but not today. So, if you find yourself to be the dumbest kid in the room, find your thing. If your worried what other’s think, the likelihood is that not much is expected of you. That is fine. Use it as blessing. Those people are not bad in their expectations. God is rooting for you and treat this season as you being in seedling form.
I tell law students… if you are going to be a lawyer and just practice your profession, you have a skill—very much like a plumber. But if you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside yourself… something that makes life a little better for people less fortunate than you. – Ruth Bader Ginsburg
As I write this, it’s been a day after we found out about the giant that is RBG passed away. The news cycle has already turned political, but in my message groups we are still exchanging stories about her impact on our lives and how her death is somehow a passing on of the torch. We acknowledge that there is a place for us in the fight. What fight we choose to join is up to us. But we must fight. In life we can get to a comfortable place which is what we always prayed for right? A regular income which also allows you to afford a social life. It all feels so secure. Yet, we must not be clouded by this new normal. We have a job to do. I don’t who you are reader, but I am a black woman existing in society which sees both these things to be at best an inconvenience or at worst a threat. So I still find myself rubbing against racism disguised as banter, meeting a wall of silence when such a silence is a siding in itself and sexism. The good old being followed home kind, being gropped without your consent and talked over/ under estimated. So for me, I feel a personal charge to keep fighting against the systems which encourage this behaviour and the people who tolerate and support it.
At 8 I thought I was stupid then God said let me show you what I can do with what the world might dismiss. I became a lawyer and now I know this journey wasn’t just for me. I am a vessel not the achievement. My story starts with a grandmother made a widow, too early, who made it work not that I can end up only having the title and being able to afford brunches out with friends. The work of the ancestors continue. Kick the fucking door down, break their glass ceilings and always help and let more through.
THE WEEK THAT WAS:
Words of note –
May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an inscription upon the rock… May you be rooted and grounded in love. May your convictions be deep, your love real, your desires earnest. May your whole life be so settled and established, that all the blasts of hell, and all the storms of earth shall never be able to remove you. – Charles Spurgeon
Thankful for –
- Friends you can call when you need a prayer
- Bethel, Hillsong and Elevation Worship
after the wilderness 