Lucy, feeling a mix of gratitude and pride was looking out of the window onto the view of the beautiful palm trees lining the beachfront underneath the clear blue skies of Seychelles. She was on leave, and this leave made sense. This was her first time indulging in self-care, self-love and “over enjoyment” as her former colleague coined it.
As she enjoyed the view from her hotel room on the top floor, she couldn’t help but look back on the past year and how much had happened.
Exactly a year ago, she was walking in the rain. She had prayed for it to stop but it raged on. A very heavy downpour with winds blowing strongly, making it fall in all directions. She was totally drenched. It occurred to her that she had been praying a lot but all didn’t seem to be answered. This added to her already dampened spirit. She felt so broken and helpless.
The prayers started that morning, she was leaving for work when she heard a bang on the door of her mini flat in Ikotun. Her heart skipped, praying it was not Oga landlord but deep down she knew it was him. She didn’t answer, maybe he would go away, she wished. Lucy’s rent was due, it was actually due by four months.
Things had been really hard. Her mum was sick, and the bills were hipping up. She was responsible for her mum and her younger sister, who was still at the university. She had thought there would be a turnaround. Every plan she had was riding on the presentation she would be doing for Goldberg investment, which was interested in investing in their real estate project.
Mr Edosa, her boss and owner of the company where she worked, had said if she got them onboard, a promotion was sure.
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Lucy was running very late, she had to wait for Oga landlord to leave, not without cursing her and her generation. She returned it back, clicking her fingers over her head and saying “over my dead body”. As she ran to catch up with the molue to CMS, she prayed again that she would not be late for the presentation at 9 am or better still, the clients will be late. She ran into the office, her hair and clothes looked terrible. She asked the receptionist and was told that the clients from Goldberg had arrived at 9 am. She reached the office at 10:42 am.
Lucy said a quiet prayer again that her presentation goes well. She opens the conference room doors and walked in hastily while straightening her hair and clothes. As she walked in, Mr Edosa looks at her in anger but she tries to appear confident and apologizes for her lateness.
Lucy begins and 45mins later, Goldberg executives got up and said they have to leave. They had another meeting they must attend to. How could this happen? Lucy was shocked, she felt it all crashing, she couldn’t even say anything in her defence or plead when Mr Edosa told her she was fired. She packed her things and left into the rain.
Getting home, she just crashed on her bed with her wet clothes. Her mind was running in circles, reasoning how she could have done things differently to make it to the office on time. Lucy was not a bad person. She was a church girl, so why did everything come crashing down? How was she to cope, now without a job?
She was in this state a week after, barely able to fathom what to do and stayed indoors. She had just resolved that she needed to go out to look for another job when her phone rang. It was a strange number but she picked anyway and the person identified herself as Ann from Goldberg Investment and asked if she was available for a chat. This got Lucy off her seat, and she quickly accepted. The call was transferred to someone else.
Apparently, they had called her office to speak to her about some details of her presentation and was told she no longer worked there and why. The busybody receptionist gave them all the details without leaving anything out. Fortunately, Goldberg Investment decided to offer her a job because they were impressed with her presentation.
Her remuneration package at Goldberg investment was 10 times what she was earning in her previous job. She got much better than what she prayed for. Thankfully, she no longer needs to pray away her landlord, she moved into a better apartment and has since been living happily and debt free.
