My life began at twenty-eight.

My name is Sophie Khan and I am a solicitor living in London and working for a national law firm. I have lived in London for four and half years and although I have had my ups and downs over the years I now feel that at twenty-eight years old my life is finally coming together and I can begin living the life that I have studied and worked so hard to establish.

Why at twenty-eight? I don't know. But what I do know is that things make more sense now and I don't feel as if I need to continue to try to get there anymore. I feel as if I am there now! It sort of just happened a couple of weeks ago. The firm had to restructure due to the current economic situation and part of the restructuring involved me moving to a new department and a new team which fortunately for me has a fantastic team leader who genuinely cares about the team. This on the back of seven months of hell from my previous team leader who I and others agree has some kind of undiagnosed mental disorder or who is so thick that she just does not understand how to behave in an appropriate and professional manner. The latter of the two is my first choice as from experience I can confirm that she is the thickest person I have ever meet in my professional life.

Anyway, she is history as my father puts it and a new dawn has arrived for me and my future which has automatically taken the burden off my shoulders and I feel free to do everything else that I have always wanted to do. Writing is one of them, learning Arabic fluently, travelling more and taking a more active part in campaigning for human rights and other causes that I support.

My outlook on life is more positive as well and I feel that the stress that I went through was for something and that I have not wasted my life as I had kept telling myself and my parents who always said this moment would come. Of course I didn't believe them but they were right and when the moment came everything seemed to change. I am no longer waiting for what is round the corner as I've passed that and can now see a clear road ahead of me.