My story begins years ago in 2009. I was in the 10th grade. Exceedingly unmotivated regarding academics and failing nearly all my classes apart from choir and English. But out of all of my siblings I never got in trouble for my grades. The previous year had been the first year our grades really “counted” towards graduation and it was the exact same way. But at the end of the year in 10th grade I had decided I wanted to be in color guard and join my sibling in the marching band. It was hard. I was not an athletic kid and would often come home covered in bruises and crying. During band camp I was sobbing nearly every night. On the third day my mother was going to have a talk with me and I was also going to find out why she had never scolded me about my grades the way she had my siblings.

My mother and father sat me down and my mother told me that she never expected me to get this far in color guard and that I should just quite. And as far as school they don’t expect me to graduate at all and said that I was “kind of stupid” so it was expected that I wasn’t going to succeed.

Needless to say I was pissed. Not only did I finish out band camp. The following season I became captain and would be captain for my last three seasons in color guard. And during 11th and 12th grade I maintained a 3.8 grade point average and perfect attendance. I made up all of the credits I missed and was able to walk. My parents showed up to my graduation in hole filled clothes and left after 5 minutes but for that moment I looked up at both of them and just felt so goddamn good about myself and like it was a giant middle finger to them.

They both have college degrees and due to personal issues I was never able to finish college. However i worked my ass off and I now work in workforce management for a company and am extremely good at it (despite the fact that it involves alot of coding and math)

So now everytime i succeed at something or if someone calls me smart it is a nice middle finger to my parents 😁