Today is my living hell, my new reality. It’s playing out in my head on repeat. Yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that… my inescapable Groundhog Day. I never imagined I would find my new job at the company of my dreams so unconscionable.  

Four male interns—my new ‘friends’ and soon to be colleagues —saunter towards me, pleased with themselves and their cutesy little inside jokes carried forward from four years together in college. They’re playing grown-up in an exciting adventure with their buddies. 

They are oblivious to my subtle Lady Diana gaze from afar, so I follow up with a more penetrating stare as they approach my desk, wishing my unique female presence would telepathically force these guys to acknowledge my existence. I long to share a joke, be included in conversation, feel the warmth of their smiles, and answer the simple, but central question, ‘Would you like to join us for lunch?’ But they look past and through me. 

Every damn day at 11:55am they form a bee line from class to venture across the street to enter their new favourite watering hole: a ‘men’s only’ club to grab… lunch. I couldn’t even follow them if I tried.

How can this be happening? It’s 1981 for God’s sake, not 1951.   

I feel invisible, but I toss my hurt feelings to the curb and settle on a nearby bench for my lunch break. I stuff an overpriced, prepackaged hotel sandwich in my face and notice each passerby gawking at me. 

Why am I not invisible now? I know they’re thinking, Who is this loser and why is she eating alone? Or are they? In my fragile state, am I overreacting to what I fear most? 

I’m an imposter. I don’t belong here.

Overthinking and clutching my sandwich too hard, I narrowly avoid spilling mustard on my blouse, instead dropping a small piece of lettuce on my winter-white jacket that lands on my winter-white skirt. Damn. I wore this same outfit to twelve job interviews—it was all I had and all I could afford—and today, I chose this same outfit to be seen, to stand out.

But not here; not like this. 

After lunch, the ‘boys’ and I return to class. We are halfway through our ten-day training program on how to be nerdy number crunchers. While we learn to ask probing questions, we are becoming astute detectives who analyse gobs of related data to find one of these things that’s not like the other. We’ve come to audit.  

The lessons I hear, the case studies I read, speak to my soul. The numbers on the page don’t. 

I’m not like the others.  

It feels like I’m learning Swahili with our new language of acronyms and terms like g/l’s, provisions, bad debts, reconciling items, and PBC schedules flowing freely from the mouths of our instructors. I’m in over my head, and it’s becoming more difficult to hide this embarrassing fact. As one of very few women in a sea of commerce graduates, and the only non-accountant, I clearly don’t belong. I am so naïve to think this could have been my career, my life. 

I need a kind word of encouragement, or support from someone, anyone. A welcoming lunch with my new workmates would help. I need my nerves to calm, to be less fearful, more confident. 

Where is that woman? Was I ever that woman?

I must stay strong. But when will I feel like I didn’t just make the worst mistake of my life? 

That was forty years ago. Today, I have different worries, but I still sometimes wake up at night thinking about those first harrowing days in a career that would shape the rest of my life. Today, I see creases on my forehead, laugh lines when I’m not smiling, and stubborn dark circles under my eyes. I wear bifocals, and grey peeks through my centre part every six weeks. My health is fair, but osteoarthritis and my degenerating cartilage prevent me from walking the golf course like I long to. I have to give blood every six weeks for the rest of my life—an inherited disease, hemochromatosis.

Let’s face it: aging sucks. I have to beat this gradual decline for as long as possible. I owe it to my older self to exercise regularly, eat healthier, sleep in (always), and treat myself to massages when my body says, ‘Enough is enough.’ I’m also banking on my grandmother Mimi’s 98-year-old genes to help me stay as young as I feel. 

I answer to Susie Q, Big Al, Sus, JR, Mom, and more recently, Nanna. But when asked what I like to be called, I say, ‘My friends call me Sue.’

I did not come from privilege, power, fame, or fortune. My siblings and I grew up in a poor neighbourhood in an education system that never expected you to dream big. As a young woman, you found a job out of high school, got married, had kids, and that seemed to be the end of it.

My father, Stan, worked two jobs to make ends meet, keeping him busy days, nights, and on weekends. His second job grew out of his knack for recognising an entrepreneurial opportunity when he saw one. He was fascinated with all things electronic, and he combined his lifelong love of learning (which I inherited) and his boundless curiosity to teach himself about the inner workings of the television set. 

Keep in mind that colour televisions were a brand new, must have commodity in the materialistic, post-war era of the 1960’s. He capitalised on this, and his company ‘S. Allen TV Repair’ was born. Known around the neighbourhood as the nice man who brought TVs back to life, he was fully booked nights and weekends, bringing in the extra cash we needed. 

Even though his own mother, Mable, had forbade him to further his education beyond high school, my dad was the engineering/math whiz of the family. When I was ten years old, my brother and I would join Dad on the couch to absorb his latest math tricks, learning how to solve for X, answer logarithmic equations, and use a slide rule. He would quiz us on our comprehension and was delighted at how quickly I caught on.

Even though she prevented my father from furthering his education, my dad’s mother, Mable, was a loving, ‘practically perfect in every way’ grandmother to me. ‘Nanna’ was the definition of matronly, with short and curly white hair, thick glasses to match her wedge-heeled, sensible black shoes, and loose-fitting print dresses tied at the waist which only served to accentuate her full figure. 

She had a grade six education from the suburbs of London,

England, and was convinced that bookbinding was theonlycareer choice for her only son. As everyone seemed to appreciate but Mable, a bookbinding career would soon find its place in history alongside the blacksmith and the carriage maker.

Henry, my dad’s father, and the man we all called Grandpop, was a different sort of man—the opposite of his wife and very different from my own father. A short and stout World War I veteran sporting a full head of white hair, he was unapproachable and scary for a child like me. He wore eyeglasses and spoke in a fast, low, and gruff voice which sounded like one long, rambling mumble, made more difficult by his slight Cockney English accent. He laughed unpredictably, which was the scariest part, and would tell inappropriate jokes young ears shouldn’t hear. He was one of those men who was hard for children (and adults) to warm up to. 

As we came to find out years later, Grandpop had a scandalous and sordid past. He’d knocked up his boss’s daughter at the butcher shop and fled England, then upon arriving on Canadian shores as an off-the-boat immigrant, he worked illegally as a bartender during Prohibition. Trying to make something honest out of something crooked, he invested everything he had into the stock market. But fortune looked unkindly on Grandpop, and he lost every last penny on Black Tuesday when the markets crashed, and the infamous Great Depression took the world by storm. He was forced back into his old trade: a butcher.

However, Grandpop was famous for one lasting achievement. He had developed a recipe for pork and sage breakfast sausages the entire family loved, but the only time we were destined to savour Grandpop’s sausages was when we visited him, because he would share his recipe with no one. This, as true to human nature as it gets, made the sausages and the recipe even more desirable! We all thought he would go to his grave with his sausage recipe crimpled and clutched tightly in both hands. That was until I tore it from his grasp.

When I look back on this moment, it’s so clear in mind. I think it’s because this was the first time I used my feminine wit and charm to negotiate successfully and deliver a result that would make my team (my family!) all happy.

My plan was simple, but effective. I patiently waited until Grandpop was in a particularly good mood one day. Alcohol may have been involved in loosening him up a smidge. So, upon seeing him in this state, I seized the opportunity to pounce, and I bashfully jumped up on his knee just to talk—granddaughter to Grandpop. 

First, I stroked his ego a bit with generic small talk, and as soon as I mustered up the courage, I asked him the zinger, ‘Tell me, Grandpop, what ingredients go into your oh-so-delicious sausages?’ and in between our meaningless small talk, he would let an ingredient slip out and I would excuse myself every so often to write it down in the amounts I could remember.  

One innocent question after another and kaboom! The detective in me had extracted what others far older and wiser than me had tried so many times before to get their hands on: Grandpop’s sausage recipe! My dad couldn’t have been happier, and I couldn’t have been prouder of my sorcery! 

My mom, June, was the artist of the family. Her soprano voice presented her with the lead singing roles in her high school musicals. But it didn’t stop there. She could also draw, create graphic designs, paint, and produce metal art known as copper tooling. The Ontario College of Art would have been the place for her to attend and excel, but that wasn’t in the cards for her either—a married woman in her snack bracket didn’t venture off to college in the 1950’s.  

Our walls were adorned with scenes of oceans crashing into rocks, a far-off sunset, trees in a fall forest, or a lighthouse on a pier. She used a wide flat knife as her paint brush and was not afraid of colour. Her large canvasses created stunning pieces with their unique, uneven surfaces, and the colours she selected matched the room they were designed for. 

Even though I managed to inherit my dad’s logical math abilities, I have the artistic aptitude of a two-toed sloth. I draw stick people. My soapstone art project from grade eight shop class was supposed to be a long, slender cat, sitting tall. If you saw it, you would swear it was an injured soup ladle.  

My mother’s parents, Mimi and Douglas, were close to our family both in the geographic proximity and continuity of our daily lives. Although they were born and raised in Canada, they too had English roots just like my father’s parents. Mimi and Grandad spent their hard-earned wages on vacation experiences and the best gifts they could afford for their six beloved grandchildren, but they were only able to do this by living frugally in a one-bedroom, high-rise apartment complex on the border of Toronto.  

‘Mimi’ was a perfect nickname for my petite, no nonsense, and fashionable grandmother… but she was nobody’s grandma! She was far too cool for that. Regrettably, like my mother, Mimi was born at the wrong time and place in history, and after trying her hand at a couple of careers, she accepted her fate as a stay-at-home wife and mother. Stuck in an age where women were not supposed to be working outside of the home, she resigned herself to stop work and take care of her small apartment, her husband, and her grandchildren when they were sick. I think that’s why she could relate to and understand me when she was well into her nineties. 

Mimi was my second mom. She just got me. She was an empathetic listener, a great model for me and my future behaviour, and there were many times in my young life I selfishly used her to vent, because hearing her voice made me feel better. Until her dying day, she was a lucid, remarkable woman with an upbeat attitude and zest for life. I know there is a place in heaven saved for her. 

As for my Grandad, I fondly remember one day, when he was taking care of me during one illness or another, he presented me with a foot-high, cylindrical-shaped brass container. He told me it was an artillery casing from World War I, and it was heavy to lift because it was filled to the brim with quarters. He asked me to count his change and tell him how much he had, whereupon I dumped the quarters onto the floor and put them in neat stacks of four. 

I still have no idea what the hell he did with this information, but I loved performing this duty for him. I pretended I was Mother Goose’s king in the counting house, counting out his money. To this day, I smile at the joy I found with this WWI artillery casing every time I visited their home. Talk about foreshadowing a career as a bean counter, hey? 

Grandad was the wild one of the family. He reminded me of Walt Disney, the distinguished, successful man I watched on the Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday. In fact, he could have passed for Walt’s brother. He was of similar size and build, wore his hair slicked back, and exuded charm with his warm heart, kind eyes, and friendly smile. 

One of my fondest and longest lasting memories ever involves a gift Grandad gave me when I was thirteen. It was Christmas, and when we were alone, Grandad approached me carrying a black, leatherbound book. He whispered to me to come and sit with him in our living room. Once there, he presented me with his book, The Holy Bible. Grandad asked me to open it.  

I carefully opened the leather cover and read aloud: 

‘To my dear son, Douglas on his tenth birthday, December 9, 1918. Hoping he will read and study it well for his mother and father’s sake. God so loved the world He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’

Grandad’s mom had written her eloquent inscription on the inside page of this beautiful book. How extraordinary, I thought. But why am I sitting here reading this to him?

He then asked me to turn over the page and read it.

‘To my dearly loved and first granddaughter, Susan Lynn Allen. May she always be true to herself and her parents in the years to come.

 — Xmas 1970, Grandfather Todd.’

I looked up at him, smiling from ear to ear. Carefully turning the crisp, fine pages with gold edging, I could see its pristine condition even though he had owned it for 52 years. A very special gift from his mom was being gifted to me. I gave him a big hug and hoped he could tell how grateful I was, and how ‘dearly loved’ I felt in that moment.  

But later that evening, alone in my room, I reread the inscription, trying to make sense of it. It must have been important for Grandad to choose that sentence of all sentences to write in such a significant book, but I didn’t understand what I should ‘always’ do or what being ‘true to myself’ really meant. Did he think I was living a lie? How was I hiding my true self? Who was I supposed to be for my parents? These were deep thoughts for a thirteen-year-old, and they would follow me for decades to come.  

Several years passed before I assigned meaning to the words Grandad inscribed. At first, I concluded that ‘being true to myself’ meant acting consistent with my values and ethics, as well as setting a moral code for myself with boundaries to live by. As I grew older, ‘being true to myself’ came to mean being my authentic self by speaking up and not regretting decisions I’d made in the past or paths I’d choose to go down in the future. I had decided that my values directed my priorities, and if I stumbled, I held myself accountable and took responsibility for my actions—especially when my decision was a poor one. 

I have tried to live by these words when I have a difficult decision to make; a fork in the road of life or a choice that pushes against the margins of my principles. Being true to myself means looking back on my life, being proud of the person I am, the friendships I’ve made, the kindness and support I have provided, and the love I have shared. You may be surprised to hear that I am not a religious person, but I have come to understand the basic lessons and principles of a Christian. I cherish Grandad’s gift and what he was asking of me. I hope, when I look back on my life, I have made my parents and my Grandad proud. 

While Grandad passed far too soon, Mimi lived a long and happy, grateful life. She measured her good fortune by her relationships, her family, her friends, and her health—the simple things in life. In her late life, she didn’t dwell on her limitations as a blind woman, or on her long, lonely years as a widow. No, Mimi was a remarkable woman, and her attitude taught me how the power of a positive perspective feeds one’s life with far more meaning and purpose than material things and money. She is my litmus test when I need to reframe my circumstance and consider how bad things really aren’t. Even after her passing, she’s kept me grounded in my good fortune. She has been my lifelong inspiration.

My parents were married in their early twenties and were soon raising a family with two kids under three. We lived in a modest, sixroom bungalow in a lower-class suburb of Rexdale, Ontario. My parents both had jobs outside the home to pay the bills, and all this at the age of 21 and 23. I often reflect on how hard it must have been for them to establish a strong foundation for their relationship and marriage.  

At some point in my childhood, sitting down to dinner together as a family no longer became a priority for my parents, so I became a latchkey kid who entered an unlocked home after school to do as I pleased. 

I remember my after-school ritual well. At five o’clock, I heated two frozen Swanson TV dinners, gave one to my ravaged, skinny, older teenage brother and slapped a second unappealing aluminum tray of processed food in front of myself. I choked back the bits of mystery meat, the baked curly fries, and the apple sauce dessert, and then went straight to my homework (or to watching original episodes of Star Trek on TV!). I was twelve.

Despite this freedom, I missed when we dined as a family, even if my parents had a standing order that ‘children should be seen and not heard.’ Before those years, family dinners, boardgames, backyard corn roasts, costume parties, and vacations were a bit more common. The simple traditions these events created were and still are the glue that holds families together. These are my fondest memories of childhood. 

In contrast, my latchkey years were lonely, missed opportunities that left a scar on my heart where cherished, family memories should have been. 

Years later, in my two-career marriage, these feelings of loss and regret resurfaced, and they weighed heavily on my adult heart during my first years with my son and daughter. To avoid history repeating itself, I made myself a promise: to fill my home with fond memories, special occasions, and family traditions. This was non-negotiable. 

However, any latchkey kid will tell you that there are certain benefits living away from the watchful eyes of parents. In fact, I bet some of you reading are thinking, Damn, if only my parents gave me the freedom at that age! It definitely had its perks. 

During these years, my brother and I were involved in what would forever be known as the ‘Great Potato Chip Scandal of1968’. My mom had ordered a subscription for potato chips which, while unhealthy and completely unnecessary, was delicious. Why we needed a bi-weekly delivery of potato chips in a bucket is a mystery, but who am I to judge the wisdom of the 1960’s? 

A couple of months into our chip subscription, I accepted the chips at the door from the delivery man, promptly carried the bucket downstairs, and watched the latest Star Trek episode. Before I could say ‘live long and prosper’, I had devoured the entire bucket of chips! 

When my mom came home from work and enquired about the chip delivery, I explained, ‘Well, it’s like this… the chip guy delivered the bucket, but IT WAS EMPTY! Can you believe it?’ My brother Doug backed me up, and what was more stunning than my hokey lie was that she actually believed me!  

I was feeling good about my cover-up until I heard Mom on the phone berating the chip company’s receptionist who had no explanation for our chipless delivery. After a heated exchange, my mom cancelled our subscription! I may have fooled her, but Doug and I paid the ultimate price for my fantastic lie—no more chip feasts.

Doug keeping this secret was an anomaly, however. 

My image of an older brother was to be my protector, wiser and stronger, someone to lean on and look up to. Instead, my brother Doug was shy, sensitive, naïve, and trusting which clashed with my competitive, sharp, and ambitious nature. Growing up, we were ‘frenemies’, constantly pushing each other’s buttons, his brawn often overpowering my brains. 

I was selfishly disappointed and hurt he could not live up to my vision of a big brother. I should have accepted him for the easygoing, caring man he was—a big, gentle teddy bear who loved me unconditionally despite how intimidating I must have seemed. Instead, I expected him to be an all-powerful, super boy with powers to defend and outsmart his little sister. My Type A personality found fault in his naivety, kindness, and sensitivity. To this day, I regret not telling him, ‘You are all I need, I love you as you are.’ All he ever needed to be was my brother. He passed at 55 from a heart embolism, having suffered for decades with unresolved health issues that led to his fate.  

My younger sister, Cheri, on the other hand, arrived just in time for me to assume she was all mine; a living baby doll whom I was thrilled to play with, dress up, and fuss over. For years, my sister did anything I asked and believed everything I said. As Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In explains, I was not bossy… I was demonstrating leadership! 

Sharing a bedroom with my sister strengthened our bond that continues to this day. I took the job as big sister seriously, and Cheri accepted my advice and warnings when I thought she was veering off course. As the mentor in this unofficial mentor/mentee relationship, I hoped to be a good role model, and I believe I too gained from this experience and was able to draw upon it later in life. 

My proudest act of influence was convincing Cheri (and her naysayers) she was smart enough to attend university. Having been there and done that myself, I knew she had the chops for it, and that it would lay the foundation for her future. All she needed was the courage to believe in herself. 

In a mentor/mentee relationship, it is said ‘reverse mentoring’ occurs. I am a better listener, am more willing to accept opposing views, and remain grounded because of my sister’s influence and our shared life experience. Never underestimate the power of sisterhood—sisters understand you, care deeply for you, are intensely proud of you, and can act as your advocate, mentor, and protector if you’re open to it.

So, with both parents working, three kids left to their own devices, microwaved food on the table, and a roof over our heads, it wasn’t a terrible existence by any means. Many kids had it better, but many kids had it worse than us in Rexdale.

Then, one unremarkable summer day in 1973, my father asked his three children to come to the living room and sit down. Tears were welling up in his eyes—I’d never seen him look this somber. I feared something bad was about to happen. He began slow and deliberate, choosing each word as if a dagger was lodged in his heart. 

‘What I am about to say is the hardest thing I have ever had to do or say. I love you all very much, but I have decided to leave our home and live somewhere else. Your mom and I are going to live apart now because we don’t love each other anymore. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, but I have decided it is best for me and your mom that I leave.’

There were no options given, no reconciliations to consider, no hope. In choosing to leave her, he had chosen to leave us. 

My brother stormed out of the room, unable to contain his anger and rage. But my dad continued, trying not to create a scene with my brother’s exit. He had rented a sketchy apartment (all he could afford) clear across the city, over an hour away. He didn’t say when or if we would see him again. He asked if we had any questions, and of course, I had many. But my throat was dry, and it felt like there was a lump in it the size of a baseball. We met his gaze with stunned silence, and I just watched him pick up his bags from the hallway and walk to his car. My sister, my brother, myself, and my dad each suffered in our own way, all in tears. 

It was devastating, even though it should have come as no surprise to any of us. My parents’ marriage had been falling apart for years. Words had escalated into arguments, tempers were short, voices were raised into screams, and doors were slammed. They were both unbearable and miserable with the status quo. 

My dad’s departure was the end of our family unit, and we became another statistic all too familiar in the years and decades that followed. My parents separated when I was 15, my brother 17, and my sister 10. At this time, the idyllic 70’s, divorce was a four-letter word, not publicly accepted by the generation that grew up watching Leave it to Beaver. We were the first and only kids on the block to come from a broken marriage, with a dad who came to visit us every other weekend for outings he hoped would keep him connected to our lives. 

But try as we might, distance and time were not our friends. Our exchanges with Dad became polite, shallow conversations with awkward silences. I kept asking myself, ‘When is life going return to the way it used to be?’ My brother, refusing to join our charade, stewed at home, keeping peace with Mom who played the victim, furious and hurt. For years she would struggle to raise three kids on her own with inadequate support payments (in her mind) and a fulltime job that was no longer an option. 

Being among the first families in our ‘circumstance’, there were no support systems in place to deal with our sorrow and confused emotions. On one occasion, my mom asked my younger sister to lie about our ‘situation’ so strangers wouldn’t be aware that there wasn’t a man living under our roof. We were a common statistic of the one parent family of the 1980’s, but we just happened to be dealing with it a decade earlier. 

Because I am too much like my father, I soon got into my own heated arguments with my mom, picking up where Dad left off. Mom and I fell into a pattern of fighting over petty, irritating things that should have been left unsaid. 

I constantly fought a losing battle to protect my sensitive and naïve brother from my mother’s scorn for her husband. But with each passing day, Doug was becoming less neutral and more infuriated with our dad. It incensed me that my mother berated my father and made herself the victim while Dad wasn’t there to defend himself. I didn’t want Doug to hate his father, but my mother, now a bitter divorcee, needed an outlet for her rage and chose her kids to soften the blow. We were there to lick her wounds. 

Unfortunately, I was a persistent, negative reminder of the man who left her stranded. I knew how to push her buttons and she could definitely push mine. We brought each other to our breaking points, said things we didn’t mean, and regretted them later. It was a tough couple of years for both of us. 

The pinnacle occurred when my mom was knee deep in her divorce settlement. Predictably, her lawyer argued she could receive larger support payments, so Mom was to appear before a judge privately to argue her case. He would then deliberate the facts and announce the final settlement. 

I learned that she intended to take Doug with her to testify in court against his father. I was mortified. How that translated into higher support payments made not a shred of sense, but her manipulation of my brother was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. 

I blew a gasket. It was wrong on so many levels. I was enraged as I pressed her to explain what the hell she was thinking! Exasperated and uncomfortable, she snapped at me, shouting, ‘I want you out! I want you out!’ An unnerving silence fell over us as we both thought about what this meant.

The timing of this couldn’t have been worse. I was thick in the final weeks of exams in my last year of high school. Thankfully, as often happens after a collision course of angry words said in the heat of the moment, cooler heads prevailed. I was not sent packing that day or that week. Nor did I attempt to leave home before school was officially finished. 

However, in the weeks that followed, the sting of her words (I want you out!) were not retracted, so I looked for and found a onebedroom apartment in a cheap, rundown Mississauga neighbourhood thirty minutes away. As soon as high school was finished, I moved myself and a suitcase of clothes—the total sum of my personal belongings—into a cramped, decrepit space, and waited, impatiently, for a room to free up in a four-bedroom townhouse near the University of Toronto in Mississauga campus I planned to attend in the fall.  

I truly regret the timing of this. Leaving home when I did felt like I was abandoning my impressionable, younger sister. I had been there in the past to support her, direct her, and even parent her, but this time, I was too busy dealing with my own challenges to help her with hers. 

I don’t blame my mother. The experience of moving out, abrupt as it was, was bittersweet. It gave me time to reflect on relationships and how important a mother, my mother, was to me. I knew I could not let this define us or our future relationship, because I knew how lonely and painful that would be for both of us. So, I chose to accept her for who she was and was not, grit my teeth, and be thankful I had a mom who loved me. I had to remember that she had shown me, time and time again, that she would do anything for me. 

Her words, and my subsequent actions, ended up being a blessing in disguise. I was forced to deal with my new reality and attend the school of hard knocks whether I liked it or not. The experience of living alone in a new city on a meagre income taught me how to survive and flex my independence. I fretted on a daily basis about whether my government loan (intended for university living costs) and my minimum-wage, part-time pay cheque would cover my rent and my food. 

I learned how to do more with less, to budget, to be thrifty, and to leave something for tomorrow. The cost of everyday things my parents had managed to provide for me, that I took no notice of, gave me sticker shock! The price of a winter coat, a pair of no-name running shoes, or dining in a family restaurant were all suddenly massive expenses. I quickly learned how things added up without my notice, so I learned to do without, ate at home, searched for deals, clipped grocery coupons, and avoided waste. I put $5 of gas in my Volkswagen Beetle for my weekly excursions—no more. This meant by midweek I was driving with the low fuel light on and ran out of gas on a regular basis. 

It was time for me to be a responsible adult, whether I was ready for it or not. Living frugally, working jobs, and making personal sacrifices became an important step in the next part of my journey.  

My biggest lesson, however, was appreciating the things that cost me nothing—a positive outlook, humility, kindness, gratitude, spending time with friends—all things Mimi personified. As I passed fellow apartment dwellers in the lobby—middle-aged, pleasant, new immigrants—I was made acutely aware of their plight and how hard beginning a new life in a new country must have been. There they stood in their hand-me-down clothes, carrying multiple plastic bags in each hand containing all their worldly belongings alongside their week’s groceries. They looked mortified when their kids (just being kids) ran amok in search of space to play, while disapproving adults shook their heads. In time, I saw a way out for me and hoped there would be one for them too.    

I knew I had my health, my intellect, my dad’s logic and discipline, and a deep sense of self to apply to my advantage. Moreover, I was fortunate to be accepted by a university, and I had the ability to commit to hard work and achieve great things. 

I decided I would be accountable to no one but myself, because no one was helping me, and no one was coming to my rescue. My success or my failure would be no one’s responsibility but mine. The seed was planted to forge my path as an independent, hardworking, and successful woman. 

I have come to realize, in an odd and surprising way, I should be thanking my parents for having the strength and courage to try and make their marriage work for as long as they did for the sake of the family. I should applaud them for being honest with themselves, admitting failure and defeat, in order to search for happiness elsewhere. 

Both my parents remarried in time, and they lived to experience many years in healthier relationships with better-suited life partners. I’m thankful that my dad had the courage to call it quits, for his own wellbeing and for the rest of us. When he fell out of love, he was strong enough to accept his fate and let it go. 

Life is not meant to be spent in a miserable, unhealthy, or toxic relationship. This was something that I chose to never forget.