My mother likes to tell me that the day I was born, my father became a man of his word. He became softer. I am his first child. He treated her like a baby and treated me like a precious gem. Even if she had never told me that story, I would have figured it out myself. My father was strict and protective of me. Friends were scared to come around the house. Teachers did not dare touch a hair on my head. Boys? They dared not come close.

In my mother’s words, “You are the first girl to teach him tenderness.”

I relished that perimeter growing up. Because everything I wanted, Daddy would do.

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On the day I packed my bags for the university, I saw my father’s heart break in front of me. He said he had told himself that I was no longer his. That he had lost me. As a promise to Daddy, I promised to stay out of the boys’ lane. Not even sniff them. I came home every chance I got. Every vacation. Mostly because of Daddy.

Soon enough, I knew it was not going to be like this forever. I was going to have to clip my father’s hands off my wings and fly. That is how I chose to do my national service in Accra. We live in Kumasi. That decision alone called for a family meeting.

My siblings watched as I presented my case to my father, explaining why I needed to go.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “You can serve your nation here. See, there are lots of companies here. Stay here.”

And in my head I kept disagreeing.

It took getting off my high horse to beg them. When they finally said I could go, I promised myself that I was not going to return. I have friends whose fathers call them their favourite daughters, but they still allow them to fly. They give them space.

My father was different.

Growing up, it was fun. It was cool. I got what I wanted anytime because most of what I wanted were sweets, teddy bears, and a nice pink dress. But I had grown and changed. My needs had grown too. My father could not see past the little girl he had protected all those years.

That is why after my service, I stayed. The first year in Accra was beautiful, more beautiful than I expected. It forced my decision, so I signed a contract to work with another company. It was my quiet way of rebelling.

Not only that, I started ignoring their calls. Too many ignored calls would raise suspicion, so it started small. Cutting him off when he wanted to gossip about something. Staying quiet on the phone. There was a time I spoke so harshly to him that he asked, “What have I done to you?”

It broke my heart that I was breaking my father’s heart, but it felt like the only way I could breathe and fly.

Barely seven months into my work, my father started demanding my presence at home.

“Come home. A situation needs your presence.”

My siblings would call me and whisper, “Don’t come home.”

My mother would call and beg me to come home. There was chaos. Every day someone was calling me.

Sometimes I put my phone on airplane mode. Sometimes I blocked every immediate family member just so I could have some quiet and focus on work.

When that did not work, my parents told me they had found a job for me. They said the salary would be higher than my current salary and that I should send my CV to a certain man.

I asked, “What work at all is it that you people are bothering me about?”

“We do not have much information about it. Just come down and find out yourself. But he said the pay is good.”

I chuckled.

I was not ready for the backlash I received from my father when I said I could not move all my things to Kumasi for a job they did not even have proper information about. I told him I was building a life in Accra.

My father was furious. He did not go easy on me at all. I thought talking to my mother would help, but it only made matters worse. After that conversation, things were never the same again.

I could not sleep. When I dreamt, they were terrible dreams that made me wake up vomiting and screaming. I could not concentrate at work. There was always this eerie noise in my ears. My head felt as if it was going to explode. Work was not going well as expected and I was nowhere near my KPIs.

One day, I quit my job.

The day I handed in my letter, I kept questioning myself.

Not long after, I started thinking maybe going back home was not such a bad idea after all. So I packed everything I had built and earned in Accra and made the long journey back to Kumasi.

He sounded elated on the phone. I could not see him, but I could almost hear the grin stretching from ear to ear. After all, he had won. His princess was coming home.

That Sunday morning, he was standing at the station when I arrived, his arms wide open for a hug. I warmed into it, not knowing I was walking into months of long suffering and regret.

The man who was supposedly arranging the job suddenly vanished from the surface of the earth. His number could not be reached.

Their faces should have been buried in shame. But they were not. They were light, cheerful, and even more demanding.

Recently, I came to Accra in December to look for a job and I got one in a restaurant as a customer service personnel. Now they are saying that if I want to work in the food service business, I should start my own in Kumasi. And I do not like it in Kumasi either.

I want to start my life again in Accra and they are not having it.

I will be 29 in November.

I have listened to them all my life. But I know what I saw in Accra when I lived there. And I know I can make it. My parents have even left me to take care of my younger ones, yet I still feel controlled at 29.

Sometimes I feel like running away from home.

I need to fly. Is that too much to ask?

 

I regret listening to them.

Right now I am still at home. My father wants me to follow my mother to Togo when she goes to purchase goods so I can start selling some for myself.

But I am a poor salesperson. I know myself.

What I know how to do is sit in an office and use my brain to work. I love solving problems. I love thinking through things and finding answers.

Selling is not me.

But in this house, it feels like no one is listening to who I really am.

And at 29, I am still asking permission to live my own life.

What should I do?

 

–Daddy Ba

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