Steemit Engagement Challenge S12W6 | "Farewell"

Change is constant and for development sake, it is also good to be made. It always comes with mixed feelings, sadness, happiness, excitement and so on. Both those we want to leave behind and we ourselves are affected either for good or for bad.

There are several reasons why one can decide to say farewell and leave home. I have taken this step severally in my life starting from my tender age.

This is a fitting topic for this last week of season 12 community engagement challenge. I will like to say farewell to this season through my entry in this topic and I will like @goodybest @karianaporras and @drhira to take part in this week's contest

It is time to give attention to the contest hints where I will be explaining in details how I have been able to adapt to change, leaving home for other places with many reasons. Please follow me on this true life story

Tell us the story of your farewell from home?

Being the last child of my mother, I have had to leave home on several times because according to my sisters, I will not be strong enough to cope with challenges in the future if I am left with my mom due to the excess love she had for me. She doesn't allow me to do anything then and that I cried a lot. But my auntie loved me a lot but she lived in another city with the husband. She offered to take me to that city. Though I didn't understand much at that tender age, I can say that I was 5 years old when I left home. I had to say farewell to my cherished mother but because I was in good hands, she let me go. It wasn't an easy decision but getting there, I was taken in as a child in the home and was treated kindly, I was enrolled into kindergarten class then. I quickly adapted.

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After my primary 3 then, I returned home because my sister, who is our oldest daughter insisted that I stay back home. That was how I got to know my siblings. I never knew them well before then. I got reunited with my mother and had that motherly love again.

I said farewell a second time to my home after my primary 6 when I left home to Lagos state with my step sister who wanted me to help her out in her business. She promised to send me to secondary school there in the big city. I was happy to go with her because going to Lagos city was everyone's dream then I wanted it badly.

My mother was also happy for me but we had the mixed feelings that we will miss each other. But I had to leave for a change. There in Lagos, I was exposed to city life where you will wake up very early to prepare for the business of the day. It was rough but I learned to be adaptable.

Schooling was a bit of a problem there in Lagos. That promise of going to school was delaying to be fulfilled and I had to go back to my home. I also bided farewell to those there in Lagos. Getting home, I was enrolled into the newly opened secondary school and my brother promised that after the first term, I will move to another city where I will continue my schooling but I will live with our first son who was a Policeman so that at least he can be able to train me.

I spent only 3 months in the village then and said farewell again to my home for education this time and to stay with my own person. There was no mixed feelings because I will be visiting home often as soon as school is on break. My mother was happy too.

But the greatest farewell I said to my family was getting married. This one left us all crying and with a lot of emotions. Though it was a happy occasion but I am going to be part of another family now and so, I had mixed feelings. I missed everyone, I missed acting like the last child of the home, I missed crying on the shoulders of my mother, I missed everyone and they were all there for me during that moment.

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Have you ever had to leave involuntarily, either because of separation in marriage, dismissal from a job or separation from fellow students? Tell us about a single case.

Yes, I have had to leave involuntarily from a city due to change in my husband's job. In 2018, my husband got a new job that warranted our movement from our former city of residence to this current city and that means leaving behind neighbors, family, friends, Christian sisters and brothers, mentors and my landlady who was like a mother to me then, including our family doctor and hospital where I gave birth to my 2 kids.

Wow! I never knew I would be able to cope without them. I got used to that city because that was the city I spent majority of my life in. I moved into that city in my 5th year in secondary school, and i completed my secondary school there, I attempted nursing entrance exams there, I got baptised there as a JW, I started and finished my polytechnic there, I got married there, I went for national youth service there, I gave birth to my 2 kids there, we built our first house there where we were planning to move in before the sudden change in employment came, hmmm!

It was truly involuntary. My kids cried a lot about their friends that were going to leave behind. My friends and neighbors came around to say goodbye.

Imagine moving from one city to another, packing and informing your friends, it wasn't easy but we had to. Yes, it was necessary that we move with my husband to be together as a family. We did and imagine if we hadn't moved with him and the COVID-19 pandemic kept us apart, how could we have coped? I thank God that we where able to bid farewell and that opened the opportunity for us to refocus.

Do you feel prepared for another farewell?

I don't know when another farewell will take place as a mother and as a wife but I am sure that another one and a greater one will take place in the future. I still need to keep preparing for it because I don't know the dimension it will take. However, I am fully prepared to say another farewell to season 12 of this engagement challenge. This one is just this week which is the final week.

I am making this entry to ensure I say a proper farewell to it.

So long as we keep existing on earth, there must be opportunities to say farewell. It opens a new opportunity for us to learn new things, new ways of doing things, make new friends and have new opportunities to improve in what we are doing or to even teach others what we know. It is a wonderful thing to be able to say farewell in good faith.

What lessons does life teach us through these farewells?

Like I mentioned earlier, farewells open great doors of new opportunities to us all if we have the courage to say it.

For one thing, we can make new friends, new neighbors, new colleagues, new business partners, new family and new ways of doing things including teaching others new things.

Nothing is constant in life, not even life itself and so, I have learned to welcome change when it comes.

I have learned to live a simplified lifestyle through constant movements. For example, I had to let go of some weightier loads and luggages, and to adapt to the living conditions of the new cities I moved to. I try to understand their language, their foods and their behavior.

I can easily mix up with people wherever I go now due to my constant movements.

I have learned to open my heart wide to accept and gain more experiences in life because I don't know what the future holds yet.

Conclusion

Life has a way of moving one here and there and as we move, we have to bid farewell to those we left behind. It opens new opportunities to us and helps us to adapt and make new friends and have opportunities for learning new things. I have moved severally and I have had to say countless of farewells to my friends and family members.

Thank you for this great contest topic that has helped me to travel to my past. Success to everyone taking part!

Farewell season 12 steemit engagement challenge!