Chapter 3 The law chose me

Chapter Three: The Law Chose Me

I didn't choose law. Law chose me or maybe, more honestly, my parents chose it for me.

In our house, ambition was an heirloom, passed down like fine china. My father used to say, "You're not just our firstborn, Ummu. You're our standard." That sounded beautiful when I was younger. But as I got older, it felt like pressure disguised as pride.

From the outside, it made sense. I was smart, articulate, curious. I asked deep questions as a child, loved to read, loved to argue. Teachers called me "a natural leader," and my mum said I had a sharp mind. In Nigerian homes, that meant one of three things: medicine, engineering, or law. Medicine was never on the table not with my condition. Engineering felt like my brothers world. So law, polished and powerful, became mine.

I started university at 18, at one of the UK's prestigious institutions, Queen Mary, University of London.The stone buildings, the red bricks, the smell of old books, it all felt important. And I felt invisible inside it. Everyone else seemed so confident, so certain. I was still learning how to manage my body between lectures, painkillers, and hospital appointments.

No one told me that independence could feel like abandonment.

For the first time, I was truly alone with my condition. No mother hovering over my bed with soup. No father calling consultants at odd hours. Just me, painkillers in my top drawer, and a brave face I wore like makeup.

The law library became my hiding place. Not because I loved the silence, but because it matched mine. There, I could disappear between the pages, write case briefs while clutching my sides in pain, and cry in the bathroom without anyone noticing.

During exam season, I had a full-blown crisis that landed me in A&E. I missed two finals and had to file medical exemptions. The university was supportive on paper forms, letters, polite sympathy. But I still felt like a failure. I remember looking at my IV drip and thinking.Is this what my life will always look like? Trading ambition for blood transfusions?

But I didn't stop. I couldn't. Because stopping felt like surrendering. And I had spent my whole life trying to prove that I was more than my illness.

Social life? I kept it light. I went to dinners, laughed at jokes, wore pretty dresses, and made sure no one got too close. I had acquaintances, not friends. I couldn't risk the questions, the pity, the disappointment if I had to cancel plans last minute again.

And then there was love. Or the absence of it.

Boys liked the idea of me smart, stylish, put together. But they didn't know the full story. I didn't let them. I was too afraid that once they saw the whole truth the pills, the scars, the hospital visits they'd run. Some did. One even told me, "You're amazing, but I want kids. Healthy kids." I smiled, said I understood, then went home and broke into pieces.

I started wearing a ring on my finger. Not because I was taken, but because it kept questions away. In law school, especially among Nigerians, everyone wanted to know who you were dating, when you were marrying, how many kids you hoped for. I didn't have those answers. All I had was a body I didn't trust and a future I was too scared to plan.

Still, I graduated. With honors. I walked across the stage in heels, in pain, and with a smile so tight it could have cracked. My parents were there, beaming. My siblings clapped wildly. And inside me, two voices were fighting:

One whispered, You did it.

The other asked, At what cost?

They both lived inside me now the achiever and the wounded girl. Both calling themselves Ummu Hayy.

And I hadn't even started working yet.