YES YOU CAN.

She wept.
She lay on her bed and wept, bitter tears flowing freely down her pretty face.
She was unhappy, tired and frustrated.
A poor orphan girl trying hard to make ends meet, trying hard to make something out of her miserable life.
She was in her first year of Uni and nearly dropped out just a month after her first semester began.
Uni was hard for her. All the books and handouts she had to buy, not to talk of self maintenance.
Self maintenance.
That thought brought more tears to her eyes because that was her major problem.
She saw how the other girls on campus looked, so fashion conscious, so trendy, so classy.
And they had the best hair pieces ever!
She couldn’t even afford to feed herself, how could she think of getting her hair done?
She could ask one of those men.
Those grown men with pot bellies and fat wallets, who always took her out for a meal or two.
But they always raised her hopes and brought them crashing right back down.
They would listen to her story and offer to help, if only she could meet their conditions.
Their sexual conditions.
“Hand go, hand come”, they called it.
But she would have none of that.
She had values, principles and no matter how hard things got for her, she never once relaxed her rules.
Her late mum trained her well.
Maybe she should just end it all and join her parents.
What was she living for anyway?
These evil thoughts first started occurring to her after she found out about her parents’ death.
She felt her death was next too, she had no idea how she was going to survive.
She had no one but a mean grandmother who would disown her if she had her own way.
Her grandmother despised her because she was the offspring from a marriage she disapproved of.
The only offspring too.
She always had a hard time with this old lady, especially when she asked for money.
She would give her a meagre amount that could last up to only a week, and rant if she dared ask for more.
So she stopped asking and that’s how she got involved with those grown men.
Thinking about all these things pushed her to reach for her sleeping pills, which were prescribed for her because she was too traumatised to sleep after the funeral.
She thought of the girl she once trusted, Anna, whom she called her best friend and took the first pill.
Anna spilled all the things she was told in confidence and made her friend an object of ridicule on campus.
“This girl keeps repeating clothes”, people would whisper about her.
She thought of the one boy she really loved, who deceived her, got her pregnant and left her.
She took another pill.
She thought of the painful abortion she had had, during which she nearly lost her life and downed a couple more.
At this point, her mind was filled with negative thoughts only.
She was now convinced that she didn’t deserve to live, that she had to die.
She couldn’t be stopped or saved at this moment.
She emptied the bottle and took the rest of the pills.
A lone tear fell from her right eye as she went back to lay down, waiting for the angel of death to come take her away.
She waited.
Seconds, minutes and hours passed and it was a new day.
She was still alive, much to her disappointment.
She lived.
It must have been a miracle but she lived.
Lived through it all.
She struggled, persevered and endured.
She runs a chain of businesses today.
She owns a hotel, guest houses, hostels, a beauty salon/spa and a school.
She made it and so can you.
Yes, you can.

NEVER GIVE UP!!!