The joy of achievement

in The Ink Well4 days ago

"Results are out", Victoria's message popped up on my notification bar. I ignored and still kept on paddling my sewing machine. "Have you checked yours?" another message popped up almost instantly.

IMG-20250807-WA0028.jpg

This babe, I thought, isn't it just now she just informed me, I knew wherever she was right now, she was waiting for me to give her the news of how I fared in the last exams. She knew me not to be one of those students who wasted time checking their results due to fear or the anxiety of failing, but this time was different.

The past few months during the exam period were filled with struggles, a lot of sacrifices, and doubts. There were days were I had to struggle with meeting up with a client's order and reading for exams, and 70 percent of the time I couldn't meet up due to exhaustion as I also had to juggle being a mum of two beautiful daughters and an active wife, overwhelmed was an understatement, that I had to constantly remind myself why I was doing this, to cap it all my finances were affected as I also had what businessmen call a bad month, orders not being met meant slow progress for me at a time I was spending the most for transport to and fro school during this period.

I recalled the day I received my exam timetable, my heart sinking like a stone in water. How would I manage? Work, family, and studying not as if I didn't know this period will come, some will say the exam period is what makes schooling less interesting.

Many mornings, I would wake up before dawn, preparing breakfast for the family before getting the kids ready for school. Despite the exhaustion, I would still force myself to study at night after work, poring over textbooks, highlighting, and note-taking, I won't even lie about sleep taking me unaware during that period. Our living room became a makeshift library, packed with books and papers on the center table and one of my sewing machines.

There were moments when I doubted myself, especially after a seemingly difficult paper, what if I didn't pass? Eh! God, I can't add carryovers to my already stressed self, I always thought. And on days when my fellow coursemate felt the same about a common paper, my heart ached more.

We even held a night revision class over Zoom for the almighty Mathematics before the day of the exam, but my second-born daughter developed a high fever, and all hopes of concentration and gaining a thing or two, lost.

Thankfully, my husband was available to help share in the burden of parenting that night and was not away at work.

As I sat behind my sewing machine, I disconnected my laptop from the power source as it was already fully charged. Placing it on top of the fabric I was working on, I logged on to the school website, filling in my matric number, following the prompt to check my result, and my transcript was displayed. I let out a breath I was not conscious of holding all the while, tears of joy streaming down one corner of my eyes. The words "Passed" and "2nd Class Upper Credit" danced before my eyes on the screen. I had passed with more Bs, a few A's, and Cs, out of the courses I had sat for. I felt like I was floating on air, my feet barely touching the ground. The weight of the past few months, the struggles, the sacrifices, the doubts all seemed to melt away in this instant.

"I passed 😊😊" replying to Victoria's chat I had ignored earlier, "go check yours, good luck!"

I called out to my two lovely daughters, abandoning the sewing project I was working on, "Mummy passed her exams", I said, What are we getting to celebrate this win, Ice cream! They shouted unanimously lol, "Let's go get ice cream then.

Image generated using AI

Sort:  

TIW_Com2_Banner.jpg

Thank you💕

Hehe see you did good with the whole stress and everything.

Abi, I thank God

Yeah

Wow. I can't imagine the stress on you, trying to juggle academics, being a mother and a businesswoman all at once. But thank God you crossed the ocean successfully, and that is the greatest joy ever.

It's not easy, thank God, somehow I manage them all

Among so many obligations, studying becomes an odyssey and an enormous sacrifice, but those triumphs also become enormous and rewarding.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Excellent Saturday.