This is a throwback picture to 2018. I felt like such a small girl in this big city, often battling with imposter syndrome.

But this picture reminds me how far I have come.

You see, I left my home, Kenya, with nothing but dreams. I do not come from wealth or privilege. In this picture I was living on a strict budget. I would barely eat out. I stayed far out of London because it was more affordable. Most of my money would go towards transport and I would commute three and a half hours a day to get to university and back home. I was also studying really hard. At that point, I did not know to what end.

I always questioned whether my dreams were valid and whether I belonged.

Fast forward to four years later, I am working a job I had only dreamt of and living in an area I would have never imagined living in.

I realise that 2018 was the year I planted some seeds. And they have now grown into mighty trees.

I am no longer the girl that feels this city is too big for her. I am no longer the girl that questions her abilities. I am the girl that knows I deserve all the opportunities I have, because I worked bloody hard for them. I will never let anyone tell me otherwise.

Back in 2018, after I didn’t get pupillage (after three years of applying), I was so lost.

I am not from the UK, so my student visa was expiring (thankfully graduates now have two years after university to apply for jobs). I did not have the financial means or even a place to stay back to keep applying for jobs. To be honest, I did not even know how I could get a paralegal job or any job as an international student - some recruitment firms just told me to not bother applying.

I was such a control freak - I always knew what I wanted, made a plan on how to achieve it and then I would put my 100% in order to do so. But for the first time, everything I did just did not work out. I had to let go knowing that qualifying in the UK was something I had worked towards since I was 13.

But I was so determined to come back to London and build my career. I really prayed for it.

Fast forward to four years later, I am so grateful my initial plans did not work out. It turns out sometimes you can want something so bad, but it just is not for you.

Today I am going to share a bit of a personal post.

Last year, my mum fell ill. I was on secondment from Clifford Chance’s Dubai office to their London office. (For anyone who does not know, a secondment is a temporary transfer of an official or worker to another position of employment e.g. to a client, a firm’s office abroad or to another office where they can hone additional skills).

I had been a trainee in the firm for four months. Given my mother’s health, I really wanted to be home (Kenya) with my family. To support me, the firm allowed me to work from Kenya for some time. I then needed to stay on for longer, so the firm sent me on a one-of-a-kind secondment in Kenya for three months. This was all to make sure my training contract journey was not interrupted. Extending such a gesture for someone as junior as a trainee really speaks volumes about the ethos of the firm.