Quitting is an action.
I can still hear my father telling me, “I pay the bills at home. Your only obligation is to do well in school.” I interpreted it as an obedient child would: I have to be perfect. I worked hard to get very good grades and, for the most part, I got very good grades, though when I didn’t, I hid it from him. Soon, it became easier to hide than to share because hiding meant that I wouldn’t have to confront my own failures.
I don’t know if my father would have been mad if he knew about my stumbles, but looking back, I know I would have been much better off if I’d embraced them as opportunities to grow.
This is the point in my journey as a woman, immigrant, mother and widow — an “other” in many of the circles where I navigate — where I notice all the time I wasted projecting on myself and my child the expectations I thought would shape us into belonging. I know now that true belonging is not about becoming someone other than who we are and what we are. True belonging is creating community with others like us.
I’ll leave you with a link to the most recent issue of one of my favorite Substack newsletters, No. 1 Immigrant Daughter, by Sayu Bhojwani. Sayu writes for and about No. 1 Immigrant Daughters — like her, like my child and like me, the first (and so far only one) in my family to immigrate. Her message, I’m sure, will resonate with all of you firsts, only ones, overachievers, never-resters and forever goal-seekers. She writes --
As a No. 1, we start off being assigned duties and grow to assign ourselves those duties. In addition, we’re both psychologically invested in our families and in the roles we play with them.
What if we divested from this investment? Did not what was expected and more, but only what was essential?
Quitting is an action. Embrace the lessons and move forward. Life’s short. What are you waiting for?
