There can be no growth without pain. I can honestly attest to that. Being one of two children to my mother and one of three to my father, it has never been an easy road for any of us. While we are not poverty stricken and can be categorized as middle class citizens, living in Jamaica is very hard for everyone. If you are not extremely rich, in a Jamaican sense, everyone feels the burn once in awhile.

Currently, I am in my final semester of University and I must tell you it has not been easy getting this far. I live in a society where most people perceive not having a child by the age of nineteen as a bad thing. In Jamaica, motherhood is a means of gaining more status and identity in your community. It gains you more respect. Motherhood represents fertility—something that Jamaican society places great value on. Having a child at a young age is so common here. In fact, a man who is interested in going out with you will usually ask, "How many children do you have?" and they will sometimes go as far as asking if there is something wrong with you if you do not have any. I think this is the reason why my sister fell into this trap. At the age of 25, she is now the mother of two boys, aged six and two. A couple of my friends who made it to university suddenly dropped out because of the same thing. I am not saying that having a child at an early age is the end of everything, but to the extent that the youths in my country take it, it is one of the reasons why our country's progress is at a standstill.

Being surrounded by all of this and being labeled as barren because I chose to not have children at an early age is just one of the few things that I have been faced with.

It was at the tender age of seventeen when I experienced the first major heartache of my young life.

I met the man whom I believed was the love of my life. He meant everything to me and I would walk to the ends of the earth and back if he wanted me to. That’s how much I loved him—but during the course of our relationship, he cheated on me over and over again and every time I got the courage to leave him, he would always promise to do better, to change, and to make things work between us. I believed his promises every time—until something happened that rocked my world.

He picked me up from school one day and showed me a picture of a newborn baby. He told me it was his. I didn’t believe it right away, but after the reality sunk in, I could literally feel my world crumbling around me.

It takes nine months for a baby to be born and not once did he utter to me that he had a child on the way! I was devastated but that wasn’t even the worst part. He started living with the mother of his new baby in his house. “Just until the child is older,” He said. “The mother and I are no longer together but my child’s well-being comes first and it is better for him to live with me…nothing has to change between us and I don’t want to lose you.”

Maybe it was love but I actually bought his story, until I eventually realized that he was lying through his teeth. He and the other girl were still together. That’s when I came to my senses and decided that enough was enough.

I told him we were through, that I was done with him and I was moving on with my life. It was at that point when I found out how emotionally unstable he really was. He threatened to kill me if he ever found out that I was seeing someone new. I was mad and didn’t think much about it. The only thing I wanted to do was to stay out of his life forever. But I soon found out just how serious he really was.

He called me one evening, just as I left home and was on my way to an event. I told him I was with someone and couldn’t speak to him. For the entire time I was out, an hour didn’t pass by without him calling me on my cell phone, asking me what I was doing. At 3 in the morning, he called again for the nth time and said I should get home. I was finally outside my home at around past 4 in the morning when he suddenly drove up and almost crashed into my date as he was leaving!

We got into a big argument and things were really heating up. At the back of my mind, I was scared that he would begin to do something violent. Fortunately, my date came back and I didn’t have the misfortune of finding out what he would have done that night.

After that incident, I did not talk to him anymore. It has been a year. I hardly hear from him now, but when I do, he still likes to tell me I belong to him and that I should not be with anyone else.

I would not have guessed growing up that the first man I fell in love with would cause me so much pain. It was so devastating when reality hit and I realized that we would not be together forever. The depression it caused almost made me quit school. I spent nights crying and beating myself up, wondering what was wrong with me, asking why he chose to live his life with someone else.

However, I thank God that I am a believer, because if it wasn’t for my strong faith and my belief that He had something and someone better in store for me, I would probably be another statistic by now—a single mother with limited options for her future.

With only one semester left in school, my main focus is getting my degree and becoming someone who will make my parents proud.

I must thank God that I have my mother who tries her best to help me. I have a massive debt waiting on me when I finish school because I had to use a student loan, but there is this Jamaican proverb that I like to live by—“If you want good, you nose haffi run." Simply put, if you want to make something of yourself, you have to feel pain and face difficulties to get your dreams. This proverb is a personal mantra because I believe the most treasured things in life are not those that were handed to you, but those that you have earned by your own tears and sweat. You will never love and value anything if you do not appreciate where it comes from.

The more you struggle, the more you learn, and the greater the reward.