cynical sixteen

My sister always complains to me that she has to live in my shadow, which I admit is not the most pleasant of positions. It's not that I am so great (obviously)--it's that our parents have insane expectations, and thus far, I have somehow managed to stay just inside the lines of their vision of how their daughter should be (accomplished, of course, by extreme and frequent lying in my teens, and moving out in my twenties). By "just inside the lines," I mean by the skin of my teeth--I'm still too dark-skinned ("Stop tanning," says my mom. "That's for white people."), about ten pounds heavier than they would like, and although I went to Ivy League schools for undergrad and law school, I still ended up really liberal, much to my father's dismay. I also have not gotten to my duty of making Korean babies with a Korean doctor, most likely one who is 5'7" and wears glasses.

But beyond that, I try to explain to my sister that as much as I have managed to accomplish so many of the things I have wanted to, I have also failed at just as many. In fact, currently, I am fighting to overcome one of the most devastating failures of my life. The difference, I tell her, is between deciding to let the failure define you and giving it the finger. She doesn't believe me, based on her cynical sixteen years of experience. But she will. Because in ten years, when she's my age, and she's happy, in spite of the fact that she has to confront her failures everyday, she'll realize that it's a daily battle. And every morning is a new chance for you to decide that, today, you're not going to let failure win.