Becoming Her.
Becoming Me.
Not every story gets a fairytale ending, some get new beginnings. Becoming Her. Becoming Me isn’t just a memoir. It’s a mirror of self-reflection. This isn’t just my story. It’s yours too.
For every woman who contorted herself just to be chosen. Who wore strength like armour and smiled for the world, then turned around and cried behind closed doors. Who ticked all the boxes but still felt unfinished. Who played the part so well, she forgot it was a performance.
Every woman has a story she doesn’t tell, because she was too busy surviving it.
This book tells mine. But it’s stitched with pieces of yours. The dreams we delayed. The selves we abandoned. The lessons we learned too late. The moment we finally whispered – enough.
This isn’t about a perfect ending. It’s about the slow, brave return, to the girl we were before the world told us who to be.
This book won’t give you answers. But it will hold your hand through the questions. It will sit with you in the ache. In the undoing. In the unbecoming.
And maybe, just maybe, in the becoming.
A SMALL SAMPLE OF THE BOOK
We don’t get to choose who we become – not at first. Before we start carving out who we are, we inherit, and we absorb. We sponge up everything around us. The laughter. The silences. The chaos. The calm. The moods in the room. The way our parents speak to each other (or don’t). The way our mothers navigate life with silent strength and perfectly timed sighs. The way our fathers try to protect us from a world they’re still trying to figure out themselves. And the stories told on loop by the elders who walked before us – stories that stretch back to places we’ve never been, with people we’ll never meet, but who somehow live inside us anyway. Childhood isn’t just a chapter. It’s the blueprint. The scaffolding. The silent architect of everything we’ll become.
I was born long before I knew how to wear my own skin.
Back then, ‘me’ was an echo – a half-drawn sketch stitched together with my great-grandfather’s tales of life in Africa, biscuit crumbs from the tin he kept under lock and key, and the unmistakable rhythm of my mother’s voice bouncing down the hallway when dinner was ready, or someone was in trouble (usually me).
I grew up in a house that buzzed with life. One of those full-fat family homes where every bedroom told a different story. Four generations under one roof. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. Noise. Love. And a rotating cast of slippers and advice. Privacy was a luxury. Personal space? A myth. But somehow, that house taught me everything about connection – how to live together, how to fight fair (or not), how to be heard even when no one was listening.
And me? I was the eldest. Spoiled? Probably. Loved? Fiercely.
I sat on laps instead of sofas. Held instead of hushed. I was wrapped in love and laced with cheek. Sugar on the outside. Spark on the inside.
But boy, was I defiant, even as a little girl, I knew how to manipulate the meaning of a sentence to suit me. If I was told to change out of my school uniform, I did – into something new my mother had bought for me. Was she impressed? Absolutely not. Could she argue with my logic? Not one bit.
That was me – a boundary tester with a beautiful bob and Mary Jane shoes.
A girl who used to think that becoming yourself was something that just… happened. Like one day, you’d wake up, throw back the duvet, and boom – there you’d be. Complete. Fully formed. That girl. The one who knows where she’s going. The one with answers, red lips, and a Pinterest-worthy life plan. The one who doesn’t lose her keys or cry over silly things or second-guess every life decision.
But the truth? Becoming me wasn’t a moment. It was a process. A slow burn. Not a dramatic entrance, but a quiet unfolding. A messy mosaic made up of half-heard compliments, whispered insecurities, wrong turns, right instincts, and more than a few nights staring at the ceiling asking myself “Is this it?”
And there were times when everything had to fall apart before I could feel even remotely put together.
Becoming me wasn’t about becoming someone new. It was about remembering who I already was – underneath the noise, the masks, and the expectations.
It was about reclaiming the little girl who ran across the road in her school shoes, breathless and free, knowing exactly how late she could be without getting into trouble.
So, this is the prologue:
To the woman I am now.
To the girl I once was.
To the many versions of me in between:
– The one with the big personality and even bigger dreams.
– The one who had no idea where she was going – only that it had to be somewhere more beautiful, more freeing, more her than where she began.
My story doesn’t start with a grand revelation. It starts in shared bedrooms filled with whispered secrets and stolen moments of stillness. In playgrounds where I learned to laugh at the right jokes, and how to use humour as armour.
In mirrors where I practised being someone worth liking – before I realised the only person I really needed to like me… was me.
It starts with little girl me, wild-hearted and soft-souled.
A girl who loved too hard, felt too deeply, and believed grown-ups had it all figured out (spoiler alert: they don’t). Most of them still don’t.
I was a child full of questions:
Why do people lie?
Why do girls have to be nice?
Why do adults find love so hard, when children give unconditional love so easily?
Are relationships always destined to break?
And the question I carried around like a secret – Why does confidence fit everyone else like a tailored suit, and me like an itchy jumper with the label still in?
The earliest version of me was contradiction in motion – shy in one breath, bossy in the next. A quiet storm with a loud heart.
I was one of those girls who looked like she floated through life with polished hair and perfect poise – but was all elbows and ambition. Always two steps behind but ten dreams ahead.
It took me a while to realise – who we are isn’t something we find once and for all. It’s something we uncover, layer by layer, moment by moment. It’s in the way we love. The way we rise. The way we fall apart and piece ourselves back together.
We inherit parts of ourselves, yes. But we also get to rewrite the parts that no longer fit.
So, if you’re looking for a beginning, this is mine. Not a fairytale. Not a warning. Just a girl, in a house full of people, trying to figure out who she is.
A girl with questions – a big heart, and drive.
A girl who didn’t glide – she climbed.
A girl who didn’t bloom overnight – she blossomed in chapters.
And if you’re still becoming you, I promise – you’re not late. You’re right on time.
