Yesterday's Future 2✔️

15. The solution to all her life problems.

Ada had always been good at many things, and one of them was organizing things and people to carry out tasks and achieve goals. Just like Simi, being the first child of her family and having to raise her siblings but with her dad, she grew up to be responsible, independent, daring, ambitious and always in charge. Nothing was impossible for her until she tried it and believe, she'd try it, and again even if she failed. Deep down she was a carefree, fun loving person, but because of her always certain outlook, people thought the opposite of her.

Her mother had left them (she and her three younger siblings) with the father at a young age, after saying she didn't want to marry him because he was poor and ordinary. Ikay, the youngest of them was a little over two years when she left and never returned. Rumors had it years after that she married a younger man and moved outside of the country. No one really knows where nor have heard of her ever since.

In their house it became a taboo to mention her name because Mr. Maduka never got over the heartbreak, the embarrassment and shame that she brought upon him in the neighborhood, let alone the four children that she left with him without looking back. He was beyond devastated. For Ada, she never could understand why her loving mother woke up one day and decided to abandon them, how she did it. It was like everything she grew up to know had been a mirage. She was just eight years and till date, there was still that hole, an unquenchable heaviness in her heart, no matter what she did. 

She rarely spoke of this part of her life because at the age of thirteen, she knew that her mother was never coming back for them and that she had to stop sulking and pick up her life. Their mother was as good as dead to them. At first, it had been hard accepting and once or twice she thought of suicide or running away too. She could never do it, it just didn't make sense to her, leaving her siblings who loved her and now looked up to her like their mother and her father who, well, to put it in simple words Mr. Maduka was quite a lazy and easily satisfied man who never had any ambitions in life so there wasn't really much encouragement from his side. Some people still say that his wife was right to leave him. Who knows? But still, she, Ada was never going to abandon her family like their mother did. Never.

Since gaining admission into the secondary school, she had started learning a lot, picking up a good number of skills, some petty businesses and working at menial jobs to make extra change for herself and the family. By the time she graduated from the university, she had acquired a degree in Management and close to ten skills including; sewing, hair making, bag and shoe making, catering and a lot of exposure as well. She had travelled to almost 20 states in Nigeria, making acquaintances with people in necessary places.

Despite all these, her strongest inclination was for media and entertainment. She wasn't much talented in that area but she knew and understood the business of it, the many prospects. She was made the social director of her department during her third year, a post that wasn't taken from her until she graduated. She was so keen on keeping the social and entertainment life of her department together and she took it quite serious, using it as an opportunity to test her range.

Her two year term as Social Director had its challenges but was well spent and she made a mark that students would remember in her faculty for a long time. When it was time for shows and activities, Ada always knew exactly who to involve and what to do. By the end of her final year, she got the award for best member of the student's representative council. Academically she was average, but when it came to events or human management, that was her niche.

Years after graduation, she didn't go for NYSC like the rest of her mates. According to her that was a waste of a year because she had to "double my hustle and start making money fast to send home to my family." There was no way she was going to depend on the peanuts they call allawee. So immediately she started working at temp jobs in different sectors: first as a bank marketer, then as a stylist, later as a freelance/online marketer and several other opportunities that came her way as a result of the diverse skills, exposure and connects that she had at her disposal. She never really stayed in one place for too long, was the problem. There was always this darkness, that unquenchable heaviness in her heart that never seemed to get satisfied, not by anything, or anyone. She just always yearned for more. More.