" A Woman of My Own" by Angelissa A

All I ever wanted was for my parents to be proud of me. And by parents, I mean my dad. My dad is a rockstar. Immigrating from Michoacán, Mexico as a kid he had nothing, no roots in America, and little guidance from his parents on how to make it in this new country, as it was even newer to them. He started working on fields and tending to livestock with his father at the age of 12. He was the first to graduate from highschool in his family. He was also the first in his family to gain his citizenship in 2008. A couple years before that, he started working as a car salesman. One of my favorite stories of his is when he walked into his first interview at a dealership in his cowboy boots, and since the interviewer just-so-happened to be Mexican as well, he wanted to give him a chance and hired him. He worked a decade of early mornings and long nights to make it to where he is now. He escaped his family’s generational curses of poverty, addiction, alcoholism, and organized crime. Like I said, rockstar. I used to always tell him I wanted to be like him, and he’d tell me he wanted me to be better than him. That’d leave me dumbstruck, because to me, being just like him was already a challenge, how could I ever be better?

Throughout elementary and middle school, I’d rush to show my dad every one of my report cards, academic awards, and test grades. Nothing could beat that warm feeling of approval that would rush through my heart when he’d smile and tell me he was proud of me. In the 5th grade, I declared to him and my mom that I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. I knew nothing about neurosurgery or the medical field, I just watched a lot of Grey’s Anatomy. After a couple of google searches, I knew that the medical field, much less the high stress that comes with being a neurosurgeon, was not for me. I didn’t tell him, though, because I loved how his face lit up with joy at the thought of his daughter going to medical school and becoming a surgeon. And just like so many parents do, he told the entire family that I wanted to be a neurosurgeon, and they made a huge deal about it as if I was already in medical school. Eventually, everyone forgot about it, except for one of my uncles who still asks me if I want to be a neurosurgeon everytime he sees me.

I didn’t realize how backwards my mentality was until I lost my dad’s stamp-of-approval. The school year of 2019-2020, my sophomore year, everything collapsed. I didn’t know why then, and I still don’t fully know why now, but my straight A’s went to nothing but D’s and F’s. I stopped turning in assignments, stopped studying, and almost stopped caring completely. Emphasis on the “almost”. I dreaded coming home from school each day, and looking my dad in the eye knowing he wasn’t proud of me anymore, that he no longer had any achievements of mine to tell our family about, and that he was disappointed in who I’d become. This was a devastating time for us both, as I believe we both realized how much our relationship as father and daughter relied on my academic achievements. Even if it was not true, I felt his love for me  went up and down along with the percentages on my report cards. I wouldn’t be in school forever, so what would happen when I was an adult? Where would my dad and I stand if we didn’t have my grades to tell us where we should stand? I knew this couldn’t go on.

I picked myself up. I went to summer school to remediate my D’s and F’s, and earned passing grades in my junior year. Eventually, I got myself back on track, as if sophomore year never happened. But it did. And in a weird way, I’m grateful for it. I decided to fix my past grades and work hard toward my current ones for my own satisfaction and future, not my father’s approval. After some long conversations, my dad and I agreed that I need to follow the path that makes me happy and proud of myself. We’ve gotten closer, and have branched out our conversations and interactions beyond the subject of my latest math test. Of course I still want my dad to be proud of me, but now it’s become a bonus that will come with me being true to who I am and proud of whatever I decide to achieve.