The daughter tells me she doodles in class. I am not surprised. She is like me. We do not like school. She is bored. When she was in kindergarten, her teacher repeatedly had to talk to us about her behavior. She would disobey deliberately affer being told not to do something like sharpening her pencil. She would do it in front of everyone. 

One time when she was in a daycare in Chicago, she woke up from naptime and started jumping on her bed. The other kids, who had never met her before, joined her. I told this story to one of the investigators who I supervised, a former uniformed Secret Service agent and he said she was a leader. 

She is truly my daughter. It runs in the family. My recently deceased uncle was almost expelled from elementary school. How you accomplish that is beyond me. 

When I was in the equivalent of 6th grade in Malaysia, I had a special seat in the classroom – right next to the teacher. I was naughty. I rarely tell people this, but I got suspended for fighting in middle school. I picked a fight with a bigger kid to make a point. Lost but got bothered a lot less after that incident. 

I think these experiences helped me to stay true to who I am and what I believed. 

During my first week in law school, there was a panel on how to handle the pressures and challenges of a legal education and career. I distinctly remember this senior professor telling us the following – that many of us entered the profession to do good and seek justice but that also many of us would take higher paying jobs initially instead of lower paying ones that could potentially impact people more directly. He said we would justify this decision by saying that once we made enough momey, we would then do the original job we set out to do. 

He then said something that has stuck with me ever since. He said it would be too late, that we would have changed too much by then and could not go back to what we used to be. He concluded with the following – no matter how handsome or beautiful the person we go to bed with, we still have to face ourselves. 

It is so true. 

Janis Joplin and Henri Nouwen, two individuals as far apart as could be, echoed similar sentiments. Joplin, one of the greatest blues singers of all time, and Nouwen, a renowned priest and thinker, said they would entertain or minister to thousands but go to bed alone. 

Haunting. 

I made sure I would try to avoid that fate. That I could sleep with myself. I didn’t doodle much in class. I scribbled song lyrics and immature poetry. I did repeatedly draw this picture of me facing a mountain range with a guitar strapped to my back. And I think this is how all the above ties together. 

I listened to my heart.

I didn’t want to play someone else’s game. I wanted to be myself, no matter how weird or awkward I was. But here might be the punchline in all of it. I was much steadier and grounded than most imagined. I carried many. Hidden as usual but not to everyone. 

Here’s my heart. 

It is mended, torn, but still powerful and true.