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Why I Still Find Christmas Difficult

My mum and dad moved to Edinburgh, Scotland from Nigeria in 1994 and I was born the following year. Six years later my parents had my brother and then they separated. I was so young when they split up that I only have a handful of blurry memories of us as a family of three. I do, however, remember the day my dad moved out like the back of my hand. It was a warm summer evening, my mum and my brother were upstairs, and I was standing on the front steps of our flat trying to decide which parent to stay with.

At the time it never felt like my world was falling apart or like it was this really traumatic event that would shape me for the rest of my life, and if I am honest, it still doesn’t. We lived with our mum and spent every second weekend at our dad’s. It was definitely not without its upsets and it wasn’t always easy. I found it stressful going from Mum’s to Dad’s and back again, but I never really cared that I didn’t go home from school each day to two parents instead of just one asking me how my day was.