Reflections on Meeting the Parents - Essay Example

The day I was going to see my parent’s eyes shine with pride. The day I would see respect reflected off on my peer’s faces. The day; which I would cherish for my whole life. The day I was going to make the freshmen’s toast for my class, at the freshmen’s dinner, as the dean’s selection out of a class of hundred students.

They say happiness is best enjoyed with a loved one. How immature I had been. About happiness and loved ones. After a hurried breakfast, I had gone to meet my best friend in the entire world. As I saw her face, a memory flashed across my mind. The expression of pure joy on her face when I had told her I had been selected. She, of all people, knew the uphill battle I had to face with my parents. She had been with me since we were fetuses. As the only child of award-winning scientists, academic perfection is not just asked of, it is demanded. The freshman’s toast was the highest tribute bestowed on a freshman, and I knew it would finally prove to my parents that I was worthy enough to be their offspring.  Looking back now, I realize the joy had been blemished by an expression that had appeared on her face for a fleeting second before being lit with delight, an ugly expression, a look of pure jealousy.

We had dined together, a celebratory lunch, her treat. I remember feeling a combination of emotions, from butterflies inducing anxiety to spine-tingling excitement to incredulity. She calmed me, reassured me, laughed away my doubts, and did everything that I needed at the time. By the time we got done, it was time to get ready for dinner. We spent an enjoyable hour getting ready. I was starting to feel more and more nervous as the time for me to stand up in front of a room full of my peers and their families and deliver an inspirational speech drew nearer. I remember receiving my parents and escorting them to their hotel room a few hours before the dinner. I had kept the part about me being selected to give the freshman’s toast a surprise for them. I recall the mental picture I had pictured while I was receiving my parents; me on the podium, looking proud, tall, and confident, with my eyes fixed on parents' expressions as they looked at me; their eyes glittering and their faces lit up with pride.

After leaving my parents I went down to her room. The anxiety was getting out of hand. I am not an edgy person, but I had prepared so extensively for this night, that the thought of messing up even a single detail, with so much at stake, was scary. I wanted her so that she could calm my nerves. She made me sit down and drink a cup of strong coffee. Looking back now, I remember the coffee tasting bitter and having a nasty flavor. The nervous wreck I was at that time, I didn’t notice much. After that, it all became a hazy blur, a muddled blur of sounds and colors. A voice asking from afar whether I was awake or not, a touch, then hands grabbing me and pulling me. Then I felt the smoothness of a mattress under me and I slept. The blackness took over.

Coming out of the dizziness was like fighting to reach the surface of the water from below. I think, now, that it was the sound of applause coming from the room directly below that woke me up. I recall sitting up and glancing at my friend’s clock. At first, my head was spinning so hard, it took me a long time to grasp the implication of the time it was showing. As soon as it entered my foggy mind, I took off running to the ballroom where the dinner was supposed to be held. I burst in at the entrance, to see her, my best friend being given a standing ovation while the Dean said “We thank Ms. Aliya for delivering the freshmen’s toast tonight! And now moving on with the program I would like to call upon…..”

People ask me why I have don’t let people in, why am so closed off. I don’t answer. How do I describe the emotion of betrayal?  How it feels like being left alone in the middle of the desert without water or warmth. How does it take away all that is good within you and leave you hollow? I just don’t answer.