This Is 40, Season 1: The Little Girl Who Had Everything That Mattered

I grew up running barefoot in the dusty streets of Shana Close and Gura Way in Marondera.

I organised street football matches. Not full matches, but ma one touch. You know the drill. Ukasauya nemaplastics, if you didn’t bring plastics to help the ball maker make the ball? It wouldn’t end well for you. You would be benched. If you know, you know. Shana versus Gura. And I was almost always the only girl there.

I have always been the girl who doesn’t wait to be invited. Who doesn’t need permission to be.

This was my childhood, the days of my life. We didn’t have much money. Like, at all. But my mum and my grandmother gave me a childhood so rich in love that I didn’t even notice what we lacked.

I was a happy child. The kind that laughed loud, played hard, and learned early that if you want something, you work for it.

That was my sushi

My young mother gave me all the warmth I carry. She held me. She made sure I knew I was loved, even when the cupboards were bare.

Today I buy my daughter sushi because she absolutely loves it. My mum used to buy me half a loaf of bread and a whole packet of Lacto from Ruth’s tuck shop at number 6. I would have my bread, and my Lacto with sugar. She knew how much I loved both, and that’s how she “spoiled” me. It was what she could afford at the time. That was my sushi. It was a treat.

And then she died far too soon. She never got to see Season 2. Never got to meet my babies. But her warmth? It lives in me. Every single day.

And then there was my grandmother

Lord, that woman.

Towards the end of Season 1, I gave her grief. I was such a wild card. Stubborn. Opinionated. Too confident for my own good. But you know what? She loved me deeply. I swear my craziness made her adore me even more. I could see the pride in her eyes. She knew, even back then, that if she were to go, I would be alright.

I was scared of nothing. Passionate about everything I believed in. A never-say-die spirit. She saw it all, and she smiled.

She died when I was 19. But she left me her greatest gift: the quiet certainty that I was going to be OK.

What Season 1 taught me

Money is important, yes. But happiness, baby, is everywhere. In the cracks. In the dusty streets. In the arms of someone who loves you. Inside of you.

Sometimes the people who leave us the earliest leave the deepest mark.

And don’t ever apologise for your fire. The right people will see it and be proud.

And so, with my grandmother’s voice in my ear and my mother’s warmth in my chest, I walked into Season 2.

About the author

Pat Ricia is a Zimbabwean writer and entrepreneur based in the UK, writing about faith, purpose, womanhood and intentional living. Read her story.